How To Manage Instagram For Your Clients In 30 Minutes Or Less

September 25, 2018
By
Danielle Read

When you provide Instagram management services for clients, time is not on your side. You’re caught up in a whirlwind of tasks. It's your responsibility to communicate your client's brand and craft compelling copy. Then there's the strategy, hashtags, and engagement. The

When you provide Instagram management services for clients, time is not on your side. You’re caught up in a whirlwind of tasks.It's your responsibility to communicate your client's brand and craft compelling copy. Then there's the strategy, hashtags, and engagement. The list goes on!Most of the time, agencies use many platforms to stay afloat. Content plans, emails, project management systems, track changes... Things become messy, fast. Especially if your agency manages many accounts.But what if we told you that Instagram management services didn't have to be difficult for your agency. And that you could complete the whole process using one tool. Better yet, that you could do this in 30 minutes or less. Now we're talking, right?

Your Go-To Tool For Instagram Management Services

The benefits of managing all your content in one place are mind-blowing.Clear, succinct processes make us want to cry with happiness. Not only do these streamline your team’s methods, but they also take productivity to a whole new level. And let’s face it. Productivity is the secret sauce when it comes to Instagram management services.Like many other agencies, managing Instagram accounts didn't come easy for us. We felt frazzled in the beginning. We were caught up bumbling our way through Asana boards filled with convoluted steps... We’d take days (and sometimes full weeks) finalizing content plans. Let's just say, we started sprouting grey hairs before our years.Bouncing backward and forwards with our clients drained our energy like daily marathons. We wrestled between planning documents, emails and project management tools. Even though we followed a series of steps with each new client, it wasn't doing us any favors.We'd fashion a content plan, add in each element, forward it to our client and request edits. If the content required amendments, we'd re-submit and await another review. Sometimes we repeated the entire process over again. We spent what felt like an eternity negotiating with our arch enemy at the time - the content plan. But that was only the beginning.Then came the posting. Our process in the early days was to download photos to our phones. Then we'd copy and paste the captions and sift through hashtag lists saved in ourpro notes. Keeping track of images, captions and hashtags between edits proved difficult. There had to be a better way.Luckily, we found it. And now we're pleased to share how a single tool helped us to:

  • Streamline our processes
  • Increase productivity
  • Save money within our agency
  • And stop sprouting grey hairs.

Now, Sked Social (formerly Schedugram) allows us deliver Instagram management services for our clients in 30 minutes or less.

Optimise Your Time

Do you deliver Instagram management services for a single client? Or are you managing accounts for many? Either way, the process itself can eat up a lot of your time. Most agencies follow a step-by-step procedure. This could look something like:

  1. A brainstorming session with the client
  2. Image sourcing and arranging
  3. Caption creation
  4. Putting together hashtag lists
  5. Content submission
  6. Content edits
  7. Publishing content.

Often this process uses an entire warehouse of tools. Content planners, emails, project management systems and various documents. This is a major time suck. Plus, it’s overwhelming.When you reach the posting step of Instagram management services, you have three options:

  1. Publish posts manually
  2. Schedule content and wait for a push notification to publish
  3. Schedule and auto-publish your posts.

For our agency, options 1 and 2 topped our inconvenience scale. We’d be in a meeting, on a conference call or midway through an urgent email. Then a notification would pop up. Each time we faced the conundrum of:

  1. Stopping what we were doing to ensure we made the ideal posting time
  2. Posting later at a more convenient time.

Service Many Regions With Ease

Managing many Instagram accounts in various locations can be tough. And it’s near impossible to push out each post without auto-publishing. Let’s take a client in Europe, for example. If you’re located in Australia, your European client's peak times are most likely out of sync with yours. And we don't know about you. But setting an alarm for 2 a.m. to post on Instagram doesn't sound like much fun to us. Sked allows you to post at otherwise difficult times with ease.It’s important to remember that social media and especially Instagram management services are location independent. And it's a huge bonus to offer your services to accounts in different locations. Manage local and international accounts all within the same tool. How easy is that?Let's use us as an example (oh, if we must). Sked has allowed us to scale our agency to service different regions. This option was not possible with our previous Instagram management services process. Now we're confident in servicing our international clients. In fact, we find this process to be as straightforward as working with local clients.

Batch Content To Increase Efficiency

Since Instagram requires imagery for each post, batching is essential. But double-handling can quickly weaken your agency’s efficiency.This might come as a shock to you. But using a third-party content planner may not be doing your agency any favors. Sure, you might feel organized. But what if we told you there was a more efficient way?Plan, review and schedule your content all within the same tool. Now, isn't that the dream? Nope, it's 100% reality.We find that Sked’s bulk uploader allows us to efficiently plan out new content. All without a third-party content planner. Once we choose our images, they're uploaded straight into Sked. We’re then able to write our captions and add our hashtags. Posts are then sent to the draft folder for our clients to review. Once the content is approved, all that’s left to do is schedule each post.Although it’s still being beta tested, we also like to batch stories for our clients in Sked. This has been particularly useful for things like:

  • Lead-ups to giveaways
  • Reminding followers about special offers
  • Announcing competition winners.

By batching Instagram stories, we are able to:

  • Promote our client’s latest posts
  • Drive more traffic to their pages
  • Avoid double-handling.

Save Money With Higher Productivity Levels

If your agency employs staff, productivity is key. You want the highest quality of work completed in the shortest amount of time. Avoid wasted expenditure by simplifying processes for your team. Sked offers a streamlined approach for Instagram management services for your clients.By planning our client’s content in Sked, our agency has saved on wages. In fact, we have saved an average of four hour’s on client work per month. When you manage Instagram accounts for many clients, that adds up. Using Sked has allowed us to bring on an extra team member and expand our services.

Keep Your Agency Professional and Organized

Your clients want to know that you’ve got everything under control. So when their usual account manager is out of office, it’s important to be able to service them. Sked's multi-user system allows your entire team to access each account. You're also able to give permission to certain people for certain accounts. This is perfect for:

  • Last minute changes
  • Scheduling industry-relevant content as it happens
  • Re-assuring your clients about any content concerns in real time
  • Servicing clients even when their regular account manager is out of office.

Another function we love about Sked is that you’re able to invite your clients in too. This is an absolute game changer! Firstly, you'll save time answering your client's questions. You'll also completely remove third-party content planners from your process. And your agency will come across as professional and organized in the process. What’s not to love?When we begin to manage Instagram for new clients we like to send them an instructional video. We use the free tool, Screencast-o-matic to whip up a video in a jiffy. We've found this to be an easy way to show clients a personalized rundown of Sked.Some areas to cover in your video are:

  • Where clients can find their drafted posts
  • How your client can check analytics in real time
  • Easy navigation to upcoming posts.

Personal touches like these show your clients that you go above and beyond in your practices. It will also be reassuring to them that you have organized procedures in place. Blow their mind and exemplify your use of a professional Instagram management services tool.

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Instagram Management Services For Your Clients In 30 Minutes Or Less

Sked has provided us with tools to best serve our Instagram clients. We now have a clear process in place and this has allowed our agency to expand. We're also confident in managing many accounts in different locations. But for us, this next point is the most impressive of all. Productivity has skyrocketed since managing Instagram accounts within the one tool.Here’s exactly how we’ve been able to manage our client’s accounts in 30 minutes or less.For this example, we discuss a content plan with one post per day for one week.Please note, we also complete strategy, branding, and tone of voice exercises with clients. We then finalize these before beginning our Instagram management services.

Bulk Upload - 2 minutes

Select the images you would like to use for this week’s content. Source these images ahead of time. A quick way to filter through images to ‘regram’ is by saving them straight from Instagram. Then, navigate to the ‘saved’ section of the appropriate Instagram account. From here you can select the images you've chosen to post.

Instagram management services - Sked Social

Once you’ve selected the images you’d like to use, you have two options. You can either:

  1. Use the Sked Chrome Extension to send images to queue, draft or schedule
  2. Save the images to your computer and use the Bulk Uploader.
Instagram management services - Sked Social
Instagram management services - Sked Social

For this exercise, we will be using the Bulk Uploader to match up with our time frames.In the Bulk Uploader, click the upload button and select all images from your computer. Select multiple images by clicking and pressing the shift bar simultaneously.We like to save each image as the source’s Instagram handle. This ensures we can accurately credit the original source.The Chrome Extension option automatically includes the image’s source in the caption.

Image Editing - 5 minutes

Next, we use Sked’s inbuilt editor to make any adjustments to the images we have chosen. Adjustments can include cropping, adding filters, text, frames, altering brightness and more.

Instagram management services - Sked Social

Captions - 17 minutes

In our experience, captions are the most time-consuming element of the entire process.Quick Instagram Management Services Tip: Have your client's strategy document prepared ahead of time. This way you can be sure to create the required posting strategies within your captions. We also recommend mapping out key dates and content requiring promotion.Use this time to tag locations, products, accounts and the image source.

Instagram management services - Sked Social

Hashtags - 2 minutes

Adding hashtags to your posts is easier than ever. What used to be a time-consuming task is now a simple step in your content planning process. Best of all, you can add hashtags to the first comment of your post. This is a visual preference for us, but we love having the option. Sked’s Hashtag Manager allows you to:

  • Group hashtags
  • Build hashtag lists
  • Add the list to posts at the click of a button.
Instagram management services - Hashtag Manager - Sked Social

Scheduling - 3 minutes

Once it’s time to schedule your posts, you have two options. You can:

  • Schedule your posts within the bulk uploader by selecting the date and time.
  • Drag and drop from your calendar view to arrange your posts within your content plan.

For this example, we used the drag and drop method.

Instagram management services - Sked Social

Previewing upcoming posts - 1 minute

Now that you’ve scheduled your posts, navigate to the Planner function. This provides easy access to an overview of your upcoming posts. The planner function is also useful to review the aesthetic of your Instagram grid. Since Instagram is a visual platform, and a virtual shop front, perfectly laid out imagery is key. To alter the aesthetic, maneuver posts around until they appear to your liking.

Instagram management services - Sked Social

Manage Instagram Accounts With Confidence

Sked has made a significant difference in the way we manage client accounts. If you're looking for a single tool to save you time, money and frustration - we would highly recommend you use Sked to manage Instagram for your clients.If you're looking to carve out hours in your social media workflow, sign up for Sked’s 7-day trial. Our all-in-one Instagram scheduler allows you to automatically post images, carousels, Stories, videos and more. Tag locations, users and products and manage all your hashtags in one place to save 5+ hours every week.Thanks to Danielle Read from Readcity Writing for this post.

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