Scheduling Instagram posts, reels, stories, and notifications

When you're using Buffer to publish to Instagram, you can either publish automatically to Instagram or set a notification to finish the post in the Instagram app yourself. This applies to reels and stories, too. Learn more about how to use notification based publishing for Instagram here.

In this article:

1. Automatic vs. notification based publishing
2. Features available by Instagram post type
3. Creating your Instagram post, reel, or story
4. How to add a thumbnail to your video
5. Adding a location
6. Tagging users in images
7. Using Hashtag Manager
8. Scheduling a first comment
9. Adding Shop Grid links

Automatic vs. notification publishing - which is right for my post?

Features available by Instagram post type

The table below shows which features you can access when scheduling a post for automatic publishing and which features are available using notifications.

Creating your Instagram post, reel, or story 

1. To get started, select your Instagram account on the left-hand side of your dashboard.
2. Open the composer at the top of your queue.
3. Choose to schedule your post as a Post, Reel, or Story.

4. Upload the image(s) or video you want to include in your post. 

5. Type in or copy and paste the caption you'd like to use. (Note: to include a caption for a story or music to a reel, you’ll need to schedule it as a notification).
6. Use the toggle to choose between Automatic (to publish automatically) or Notify Me (to schedule as a notification).
   • Note: If you choose Add Sticker and select a feature that is not supported for automatic posting, such as Music, Tag Product, Text, Link, or Topics we'll switch your post to Notify Me so you'll get a notification and you can finish posting in Instagram. We'll also generate a text box for each Sticker so you can leave yourself a note about what music, text, story links, products or topics you want to add in the Instagram app when you finish publishing your post, reel, or story.

5. Schedule your post using one of our scheduling options and you're done!

⚠️ All videos posted to Instagram are now posted under the Reels tab. To also share them to your main feed on Instagram, scroll down in the Buffer composer and make sure "Share to Feed" is toggled on:

How to add a thumbnail to your video

By default, the first frame of the video (0 seconds) will be used as the thumbnail. If you'd like to change your thumbnail, you'll follow these steps:

1. Once your video has finished uploading, click Edit Thumbnail,
2. Drag the slider to the position in the video you'd like to use as the cover/thumbnail image. (For Facebook and Instagram, we do not recommend using the last frame as the thumbnail, as there is a bug that will cause an error and prevent the post from publishing).
3. Click Save.

Adding a location

If you'd like to add a location to your post or reel, start typing any location name or type the name of a Facebook Page you'd like to point to the location of.

Tagging users in images

User tagging is only available on posts published automatically. It’s not available for reels or stories.

1. After uploading an image to your post, click the Tag button on the image.
2. Click the location on the image you’d like to add a tag, enter the @ handle and then click Add Tag.

3. A link to the Instagram account will appear on the right hand side. You’re able to add up to 20 tags on an image for a single image post.

• For carousel posts, the tagged accounts in the image are carried over for each image in the carousel. When this happens, each image tag is added together for a total. If your draft has more than 20 tags, you may see an error and will need to edit the tags down for the carousel post to successfully publish.
• Please note: all tags in the first image automatically carry over to all other images in the carousel, counting towards the limit.
• If you need to remove a tag, click the x icon to the left of it on the right hand side. Once you’ve finished adding your tags, click Save and then continue scheduling your post as normal.

Using Hashtag manager

Hashtags are a great way to make your posts more discoverable on Instagram. Our hashtag manager makes it easy to create and save groups of hashtags so that you can build a library of options, experiment with different variations, and easily reuse your top-performing hashtags. Learn more about how hashtags work in Buffer here.

You can find it by clicking the # symbol in the composer. Then, click Create Hashtag Group to start saving your favorite hashtags!

Scheduling a first comment

If your post or reel is set to be published automatically, you'll also have the option to include a first comment. Adding a first comment is helpful if you want to incorporate any information not ideally shown in your caption. 

All you need to do to ensure a comment publishes at the same time as your post is to type your first comment into the first comment field. That's it! 🎉 You now have a comment in the queue and ready to publish alongside your Instagram caption.

Adding Shop Grid links

If you're using Shop Grid, add the link you'd like to direct users to within the Shop Grid Link field.