Instagram announced last month that thanks to a new feature coming soon, you will be able to save your Story as a draft and upload it later—similarly to how you currently can for posts.
Already available through Facebook Business Suite, businesses can create and schedule stories to Facebook and Instagram. Stories can be scheduled using the Business Suite mobile app by navigating to the “Posts & Stories” tab.
Once you’ve uploaded and customized your content, you can click Publish Story to publish immediately or click the blue arrow to select Schedule Story to publish it later.
Impact on the authenticity of Stories
Of course, offering this service to all users is a pretty significant departure from the original ethos of Stories. Compared to the polished reputation of the Instagram aesthetic, Stories have maintained a vibe that is a little rougher around the edges. So, will this new function muddle a formula that seems to be working well as is?
Some thoughts from the team
No more spontaneity?
As our CEO Remco Livain points out, “This move has the potential to make the platform more static. The odds are that posts will be less spontaneous, more planned, and less in the here and now—which is one of Instagram’s most important features.”
From a business or social media management point of view, he recognizes that “for the target group of professional social media users and content creator, this feature is great. I just hope that as it becomes available to everyone, “regular” users will not think twice about posting their stories. It could lead to a lower number of posts per user in the future and less “imperfect” posts.”
Perhaps Instagram is also concerned about how this could influence the average user, a potential reason they may be rolling the feature out only on Business Suite for the time being.
Potential for enhancing safety
One of our Project Managers, and in-house content marketing, SEO, and social media specialist, Greet Gleixner, meanwhile, sees how the feature could save time and make users feel more secure posting stories. She’s enthusiastic— “I’m quite excited about the feature. I already create Stories and save them to upload later.
For me, it will mean less saving Stories to my camera roll and more working within the app. I mostly do that for safety reasons. I don’t always want to post from where I am. This feature will make it easier.”
Possibility to generate more profound Stories
Jesus Blazquez, our Senior Digital Marketing Expert, also sees how taking the time pressure off could result in the proliferation of more meaningful narratives. As he explains, “sometimes you need more than one ‘Story’ to tell a story. And the fact that while you are building the second Story, the first is already live gets you in a hurry to finish and launch the next ones asap.
I used to kill wifi and data connection while creating Stories, so it wouldn’t post until I reconnect and all of them go live at the same time. The app doesn’t like it, though, and often crashes when you do so.”
The constantly evolving role of Instagram
It is always interesting to follow how Instagram is rapidly developing new features and functionalities to captivate users and tackle business issues. Whether you’re dismayed or excited about the possibility of scheduled stories, it is essential to remember that best practices apply.
Stories remain unique in their ability to offer a full-screen immersive experience, and therefore it is vital to play that up with on-point visuals. Remember that a consistent visual identity is one of the ranking factors that Instagram says is important if you want to land your Story on the Explore page.
So whether you’re scheduling your posts for later or fashioning content to be shared instantaneously—keep your visual identity cohesive, stay on brand, and aim to provide value.
We will continue keeping you informed about the latest Instagram updates and how you can adjust your business to take advantage of what they offer. If you’d like to stay up to date on current social media trends and growth marketing hacks, follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter for the latest digital marketing news.
