Building an audience on Instagram doesn’t have to take up all your time! With some careful planning, great use of technology, and a few Instagram hacks, you can build your Instagram audience week over week while still maintaining your productivity!

We have learned a lot over the years, and one of the greatest lessons was the importance of planning our content in advance and using our time more efficiently, so we could focus on other ways to grow our business. There’s a lot to consider – first, you have to create the content itself by taking photos and videos. Then, you need to edit it. After that, you’ll probably want to create an engaging caption that provides value, and after that… you’ll need to engage with your audience and respond to DM’s and comments! As you can see, it’s not quite as simple as snapping a pic and posting it. However, we have found some very helpful ways to achieve all of this, grow your platform, and still have time left over each week. I think we can all agree – time is something we need more of these days, especially if you’re starting a new business.

Here are our top 5 hacks that will save you time on Instagram.

1. Use presets to edit your images

When we first started out, we spent hours editing our images. This was great at the time because this is probably how we learned so much about editing. However, it takes up a lot of time, especially if you are posting frequently. These days there are presets available that make editing so much easier. You can purchase a pack of presets and apply them to all your photos in just a few clicks. This saves so much time! Additionally, if you are just starting out on Instagram, it’s super helpful as you can have professionally edited photos in just a few clicks. If you are using the same preset, you can achieve a consistent feed that looks cohesive and well put together. Click here to shop our presets collections.

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2. Use a visual planner to plan your grid

Have you ever posted a photo and realized it threw off your entire grid? It’s happened to many of us, but now there are apps that will help prevent that. Using a visual planner will save you so much time because you can plan out your content in advance and see which photos look great on your grid and in which order. Imagine spending time choosing the perfect photo, writing a caption for it, editing it, posting it … only to then realize it looks totally out of place on your page. Not good! Save yourself time by using an app like Later or Preview to visually map out your content in advance and save hours of your time.

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3. Schedule your posts to automatically publish to your feed 

Maximizing engagement on your posts is incredibly important on Instagram; however, that often means that you need to post when your audience is most active. That can be tricky as you may not be able to post at that exact time due to other commitments. Or you may get busy and completely forget about that post you had planned until hours later, totally missing out on the best time to post! Tailwind is a great app to use as you can schedule and post your content automatically. This means you can set aside some time once a week to upload all your posts, and Tailwind will put it out there for you at the time you schedule. It’s so convenient and a huge time-saver. Click here to sign up and get 15$ with our link.

4. Content Batching: Write your captions for the week all at once

Coming up with captions on the fly can be difficult, time-consuming, and you may not end up with the most well-thought-out post. Content batching is a great tip to save time on Instagram, as you can take an hour a week to pre-plan your captions. Set aside time in the week to write out all your captions for the week ahead. You can include them in your content schedule, and tailwind will post everything for you, including the hashtags you choose. Content batching is a great way to ensure you plan out all your content in advance. Additionally, by writing your captions in advance, you can reflect on the week’s content and ensure you are providing enough value to your audience and creating content your audience loves!

5. Set up quick replies to respond to common DMs

As you build an audience on Instagram, you will begin to receive more and more DMs, often a lot of these will be the same questions. To save yourself time, so you don’t have to type the same answer multiple times, you can create a “quick reply” on Instagram. Anyone with a business account will have access to this feature, and you can create multiple replies to choose from. This will save lots of time, especially if you’re receiving a lot of DM’s.

Instagram can definitely take up a lot of time but finding ways to become more efficient and use your time more effectively is so important, especially if you’re running a business or busy with work, life, and family commitments. When you use these Instagram hacks above, you can easily shed 2-3 hours a week off the time spent putting out content. 

At the end of the day, it is important to find ways to save time on Instagram without sacrificing the quality of your content. You still want to invest time coming up with creative ideas for fantastic, shareable content that will inspire and provide value to your audience. By planning content, organizing in advance, and using presets to edit photos, it’s definitely manageable to put out great content several times a week, without spending hours and hours of your time.