Prepare and schedule your Instagram Stories in advance. Even for a whole week or a month! And let ZoomSphere do the work for you! 😉
How to create Instagram Stories in the Scheduler
1. Create a new post in your Scheduler App.
Click the plus button in your calendar and choose "New post."
2. Select source and post type
Select your Instagram account and choose the Instagram Story as a post type.
3. Upload files
Simply drag and drop images and videos or browse your computer to upload them.
If you're uploading more than one image, you can easily rearrange their order using your cursor. Just drag and drop them into the position you prefer. 💡
4. Add Story caption
You can spice up your Story by adding text, URLs, and emojis. The ZoomSphere mobile app will copy the text, so you can easily paste it into the Instagram native app. 👌
5. Publishing
Here are two ways you can publish Stories in ZoomSphere:
Automatic
ZoomSphere will automatically publish your posts at the scheduled time.
Exclusively available only for Instagram Business Accounts.
Manual via ZoomSphere mobile app
When you're looking to jazz up your posts with things like music, stickers, and other interactive elements directly on Instagram.
Automatic Publishing
1. Upload the supported files – image or video. Create up to 20 stories per post.
2. Select Automatic publishing.
4. Choose the date and time, and select the post status. Opt for the Approved status and let ZoomSphere publish your Story for you! 😎
Done! ✅ ZoomSphere will handle the publishing for you at the scheduled time.
⛔ Captions cannot be included during auto-publishing. If you want to add captions to your story, you must publish it manually using the ZoomSphere mobile app.
⛔ Auto-publishing Instagram Stories for Instagram Creator accounts isn't supported due to official Instagram API limitations affecting all third-party tools.
⛔ If your image or video exceeds any of the specifications mentioned below, the automatic publication will be disabled, and you'll need to publish manually via the ZoomSphere mobile app.
Instagram Story Specifications for Automatic Publishing
Official Story Image Specifications
Format: JPEG
File size: 8 MB maximum.
Aspect ratio: We recommended 9:16 to avoid cropping or blank space
Color Space: sRGB. Images using other color spaces will have their color spaces converted to sRGB.
Official Story Video Specifications
Container: MOV or MP4 (MPEG-4 Part 14), no edit lists, moov atom at the front of the file.
Audio codec: AAC, 48khz sample rate maximum, 1 or 2 channels (mono or stereo).
Video codec: HEVC or H264, progressive scan, closed GOP, 4:2:0 chroma subsampling.
Frame rate: 23-60 FPS.
Picture size:
Maximum columns (horizontal pixels): 1920
The required aspect ratio is between 0.1:1 and 10:1, but we recommend 9:16 to avoid cropping or blank space.
Video bitrate: VBR, 25Mbps maximum
Audio bitrate: 128kbps
Duration: 60 seconds maximum, 3 seconds minimum
File size: 100MB maximum
Manual via ZoomSphere Mobile App
– When you want to spice your content up by adding fun interactive elements such as music, stickers, mentions, etc. 💃
1. Assign a Teammate responsible for publishing the Story to Instagram
Don't worry when you see this note. It only informs you that your Story cannot be published automatically due to exceeding one of the above-mentioned requirements.
📌 If you don't choose any teammate (keep only Assign User), no one from your team will be notified to publish the post.
2. Approve your Story
Set the time and date of the publishing and approve your post with the Approved status. The approved post will appear in your ZoomSphere mobile app.
3. Get notified
The app will send you or the assigned teammate a mobile notification when it is time to publish the post, or you can click on the post detail to publish it immediately.
After you schedule your Stories, use our ZoomSpheremobile app, which will help you publish them within just a few steps in the Instagram app on your phone.
4. Publish to Instagram
Before publishing, double-check your post, scroll down, and then press the Publish to Instagram now button.
5. Finish the publishing process – the fun part! 💃
Choose a Story, and boost your story with some fun interactive effects such as adding music, stickers, and anything else you like.
If your story includes a caption created in ZoomSphere, it will be saved to your phone clipboard. This will allow you to paste the caption directly onto your Instagram story easily. 😉
And share! ✅
How will Stories look on your calendar?
We ensured navigating through your calendar and recognizing Stories and other posts would be easy. That's why we added a grey colored sticker to each post with information about the type of publishing that will be used:
Story – Manual
Story – Auto
Post – Auto
Post – Manual
Requirements for Instagram Stories Manually Published
Design Recommendations:
Formats: JPG, PNG, MP4, MOV, or GIF
Aspect ratio: 9:16 (you can double-check the size according to a Story template in the Image Editor)
Resolution: at least 1080 x 1920 pixels
Video Settings: H.264 compression, square pixels, fixed frame rate, progressive scan, and stereo AAC audio compression at 128kbps+
Technical Requirements:
Maximum image file size: 30 MB
Maximum video file size: 100 MB
Minimum width: 500 px
Video Duration: 1 second to 1 minute
How does manual publishing work?
Due to Instagram API limitations, third-party tools can't auto-publish directly to Instagram. That's why you will only see the Manual via ZS mobile app publishes option. Read more
Download our mobile app called ZoomSphere; it's available on Google Play and App Store.
Approved posts are synced into your mobile app, and when it is time to publish them, our app will notify you right in time.
Our mobile app will copy the images/videos and text for you and redirect you to the Instagram app, where you easily post it.
Want to know more about the Instagram publishing flow? Check out this article.
Check out how you can analyze Stories with our Analytics app.