How to Schedule Instagram Stories in Sparkforge Social Planner

Sparkforge Social Planner includes a dedicated Instagram Story composer for scheduling stories from the same place you manage your other social posts. It works only with Instagram Professional (Business) accounts and supports up to 10 images or videos per story.

What the Instagram Story composer does

The composer lets you build a story, schedule it for a future time, or save it as a draft. You can attach up to 10 media items per story. Image files must be 8 MB or smaller, and videos must be under 60 seconds.

Text overlays, stickers, and tagging people or businesses are not supported through the third-party API. Add those directly in the Instagram app if you need them.

When to use it

• Product launches. Queue a series of stories that drop in sync with your launch date.
• Event countdowns. Schedule stories that build interest in the days before an event.
• Consistency during busy weeks. Batch-create stories in advance so your feed stays active.
• Time zone targeting. Schedule posts to fire when your audience is most active, including overnight.
• Flash sales. Pre-load start and end announcements for a time-limited promotion.
• Idea capture. Save half-formed ideas as drafts and finish them later.

Before you start

• Connect an Instagram Professional account. Personal and Creator accounts are not supported.
• Upload your images and videos to the Media Library.

Schedule an Instagram Story

1. Open Marketing in your sub-account.
2. Go to Social Planner.
3. Click New Post, then Create New Post.
4. Under Post to, click Select a social account and choose one or more Instagram Professional accounts. If you select any non-Instagram account here, the story will not publish.
5. Under Content Type, select Story.
6. Click Upload image or video and attach up to 10 media items. Stay within the 8 MB image limit and 60-second video limit.
7. Use the arrow next to Post to schedule the story or send it for approval.
8. To save your work without publishing, click Save for Later.

Once posted, the story behaves like any native Instagram Story and expires after 24 hours.