Instagram Stories Scheduling from Buffer
Plan, preview, and schedule Instagram Stories with Buffer.
discussion
Would you recommend this product?
Michael EcksteinProduct Marketing, Buffer
Maker
Hello everyone!
Mike from the Buffer team here. I’m excited to share this new Buffer feature with you all and would love any thoughts or feedback.
As we all know, Stories have completely changed how people and brands use Instagram, and they are now a vital channel to distribute marketing content. We spoke to a lot of consumer brands about their process for creating and publishing Stories, and we learned how long and messy it can be, especially when audiences are craving Story content at such a regular pace.
With Stories scheduling, we hope to make it a lot easier for brands to plan Stories ahead of time, and give marketers more confidence that they’ll be posting the best versions of their content, consistently.
Here’s a quick rundown of the features:
- Schedule on web or mobile.
- Bulk upload images and videos.
- Drag and drop storyboarding.
- Add notes, which can be copy/pasted as captions.
- Story previewing.
- Reminder notifications to complete the post in Instagram
This is our first dip into Stories publishing, so we’re excited to see how people use this feature!
It’s available to try on our Publish Premium and Business plans. You can learn more about the plans and start a free trial here: https://buffer.com/pricing/publish
Let me know if you have any questions and thanks as always for the amazing support.
Pat WallsDeveloper, Starter at @starter_story
This is a game changer.
Can I use the Buffer API for stories or not yet?
Suprasanna MishraProduct Manager, Buffer
Maker
@thepatwalls Thanks Pat! 🙌. We don't have support for it via *our* API and would perhaps point you to our mobile apps if there's a way those can help you on the go! If you have another specific use case for using the API for this, I'd be curious to hear it, feel free to shoot me an email to: super at buffer . com! 😄
gg on this one! Well done - much wanted feature and always a great design solution from Buffer!
Suprasanna MishraProduct Manager, Buffer
Maker
@liam_roberts Thanks much Liam, will pass along the good word to our design team 😄.
Yevhenii PetelievMac Software Engineer at MacPaw Inc.
Awesome! How I lived without it before? Сongratulations!
Suprasanna MishraProduct Manager, Buffer
Maker
Brian PetersStrategic Partnerships Lead at Shopify
Another great product launch from Buffer! Keep up the great work, team ✨
Suprasanna MishraProduct Manager, Buffer
Maker
@brian_peters1 Heya Brian! Thanks so much 😄
Suprasanna MishraProduct Manager, Buffer
Maker
@inayali Hey Ali! Thanks for checking it out and for the question. I think Later and other tools also offer story scheduling but we handle things a bit differently.
With Buffer, you can create your Stories on the web *and* from both our iOS and Android apps. We also support additional networks like Linkedin and have a different workflow for how to create and schedule your Stories that makes it easier to see what you have coming up and leave yourself reminders and notes as it relates to each story (so you don't forget to add the right sticker, poll, CTA, etc).
We built this workflow based on what we heard from our interviews with marketers and customers similar to yourself and hope you like it if you give it a try! Thank you again for taking the time to reach out and ask :).
Prateek KeshariContent & Social Media Marketer
This is amazing!
Suprasanna MishraProduct Manager, Buffer
Maker
@prateekkesharii Woo! Glad you like it Prateek!
Great product so far
Suprasanna MishraProduct Manager, Buffer
Maker
@bao_nguyen6 Thanks for the kind words Bao - so glad you've had a great experience so far!
Lachlan KirkwoodHelping Makers Look Better 👕
Another great product!
Suprasanna MishraProduct Manager, Buffer
Maker
@lachlankirkwood Thanks Lachlan 😄
Ben BrausenCEO
Once again the Awesome Plan users that helped build Buffer in the early years are left out in the cold. Seems more and more they'll keep all new features to the higher-dollar plans targeted at businesses.
Suprasanna MishraProduct Manager, Buffer
Maker
@benbrausen Hi Ben - sorry to disappoint you here, definitely not our intention to have you unhappy with your plan! I know we've chatted in the past too and we don't take it for granted having customers like you who've been with us for years 😄.
In this specific case, we are overall hoping to help businesses with this feature where consistently posting Stories can become a huge driver of reach and community engagement. We're hoping to add more and more power like this to our Premium and Business plans so our customers there get a very clear ROI on their investment in Buffer.
Sometimes these features line up better with our Pro plan and other times for our Premium/Business plan but we're trying our best to find the balance there! Your feedback and thoughts are always helpful as we think about crafting our features and plans. Thanks so much for sharing.