Instagram is testing a new feature that allows users to schedule posts

Instagram has disclosed it is testing a brand-new feature, confirmed by Alessandro Paluzzi, that would allow to schedule both regular posts and Reels (nothing was said about its “Stories” features).

A company’s spokesperson told TechCrunch on Wednesday, it is indeed experimenting with this, “with a percentage of our global community.”

Although content creators already have the ability to schedule their Live videos up to ninety days, this new tool will make it possible for anybody to schedule their grid posts in advance.

This update was revealed initially by a select group of users who were given the opportunity to experiment with it.

A Twitter user @WFBrother shared a screenshot to demonstrate how the new feature works.

Users who are part of the Beta testers will see a “Schedule this post” toggle in the Advanced Settings section when composing a new post or reel.

Some mentioned that they could view all scheduled posts in a sub-menu item called, “Scheduled Content”. Here, you can even change the scheduled date of a post if necessary.

An upgrade like that could be useful because it simplifies the process of managing your Instagram posts from a mobile device, but it doesn’t bring any new features.

Nevertheless, having a native, in-app scheduling option while composing a post may be a nice inclusion. This allows a user to map out his or her IG posting strategy at any moment, while still being able to compose posts with all of Instagram’s creation tools and options.

Instagram has been allowing users schedule posts using an API. This allowed third-party applications like Hootsuite and Socialflow to take advantage of it.

Fast forward to 2020, year of the pandemic, the company launched Facebook Creator Studio, which gave users the ability to schedule posts on Instagram.

However, content creators who don’t have access to dedicated social media management software might profit from the new in-app scheduling feature.

Twitter, on the other hand, has had native scheduling for a while, making Instagram’s introduction of the feature late.

Last month, we reported the social media platform was testing a “repost” feature that will see users ignore the use of certain third-party apps that help repost content on Instagram. This would give users the ability to amplify any post by re-sharing it to their followers in the app.