How to Schedule a Reel on Meta Business Suite
Scheduling your Instagram Reels can completely change your content workflow, freeing you up to focus on creativity instead of constantly remembering to post. Meta Business Suite is the perfect free tool to make this happen, allowing you to plan your content calendar from your computer or phone. This guide will walk you through exactly how to schedule Reels using both the desktop and mobile versions of Meta Business Suite.
First Things First: Why Schedule Reels?
Before jumping into the “how,” let’s briefly touch on the “why.” If you’ve been posting Reels on the fly, scheduling might seem like an unnecessary extra step. But it’s a powerful strategy for a few key reasons:
Consistency is King: Regularly showing up on your audience's feed is one of the biggest factors for growth on Instagram. Scheduling removes the daily pressure to create and post, making it easier to maintain a consistent cadence.
Post at Peak Times: Your audience isn't online 24/7. Scheduling allows you to drop your content exactly when your followers are most active and likely to engage, even if you’re busy with something else.
Major Time Savings: The "batching" method is a game-changer. You can film and edit several Reels in one session, then schedule them to go out over the week. This is far more efficient than the start-to-finish process of creating a single Reel every day.
A Cohesive Content Strategy: Planning your Reels in a calendar view helps you see the bigger picture. You can ensure your content flows logically, supports upcoming launches, or tells a continuous story.
Getting Set Up in Meta Business Suite
Meta Business Suite is the centralized dashboard for managing your professional presence across Facebook and Instagram. To use it for scheduling Instagram Reels, you just need two things:
An Instagram Business or Creator account.
A Facebook Page that you’ve connected to your Instagram account.
If you haven't connected them yet, you can do it through your Instagram settings under Settings and privacy > Account Center > Accounts, and add your Facebook profile. Once linked, you can access everything at https://business.facebook.com/.
How to Schedule a Reel on Meta Business Suite (Desktop)
The desktop version offers the most features and the easiest view for planning your content. Here’s the step-by-step process.
Step 1: Navigate to the Content Creator
From the main dashboard of your Meta Business Suite, look for the "Create reel" button, which is usually prominently displayed. You can also go to the "Planner" or "Content" tab on the left-hand navigation bar and find a "Create Reel" button there.
Step 2: Choose Your Placements
A window will pop up. At the top, under "Post to," you’ll see your connected Instagram and Facebook accounts. You can select either or both. Scheduling the same Reel to both platforms at once is a great way to maximize your content's reach with minimal extra effort.
Step 3: Upload Your Reel Video
Click the "Add video" button to upload your pre-edited Reel from your computer. Your Instagram Reels videos should have an aspect ratio of 9:16 (a vertical, full-screen format like 1080x1920 pixels) to look their best.
Step 4: Edit Your Reel (If Needed)
While it’s usually best to finalize your edits in a dedicated video editor or the Instagram app itself, Meta Business Suite has some handy, basic editing tools.
Trim: Shorten the video by dragging the handlebars at the beginning or end.
Audio: Click the music note icon to browse Meta's collection of licensed audio. You can search for songs or sounds and adjust the volume of the original audio versus the music track. Note: The audio library here might differ from the one in the Instagram app, particularly concerning trending sounds.
Crop: If your video isn't in a 9:16 format, you can crop it to fit the full Reels screen.
Text: You can also add simple text overlays, though the font and style options are more limited than on the mobile app.
For most users, relying on Business Suite's editor for small trims or background music is fine, but complex edits with lots of text, stickers, and transitions should be done beforehand.
Step 5: Write Your Caption and Add Hashtags
This is where you'll write the text that appears below your Reel. Craft a compelling caption that encourages engagement. You can include up to 30 relevant hashtags to help new audiences discover your content. This is also where you can add collaborators by clicking "Invite collaborator" if you created the Reel with another account.
Step 6: Choose Your Thumbnail
Your thumbnail is the static cover image people see on your profile grid and in feeds. First impressions matter! Meta Business Suite gives you two choices:
Choose a frame: Scrub through the video timeline to select an existing frame as your cover.
Upload a custom image: For a more polished and branded look, click "Upload Image" to use a custom-designed thumbnail. This is highly recommended for building a visually consistent profile grid.
Step 7: Configure Additional Settings
Click "Show more settings" to see a few other important options, like enabling or disabling comments for the video.
Step 8: Schedule Your Reel
Instead of hitting the "Share" button, look for the dropdown arrow next to it and select "Schedule." A calendar will pop up.
Pro Tip: Meta will often suggest "Active Times" based on when your followers have been most engaged in the past week. These are a great starting point if you're unsure when to post. You can always check your Instagram Insights directly in the app for more detailed audience data.
Select your desired date and time, click "Save," and then click the final "Schedule" button. That’s it! Your Reel is now queued up and will be published automatically.
How to Schedule a Reel on the Business Suite Mobile App
Sometimes you need to schedule content on the go. The Meta Business Suite mobile app makes it easy.
Download the App: If you don't already have it, download the "Meta Business Suite" app from the App Store or Google Play.
Tap the "Create" button: Usually a large "+" button at the bottom center of the screen.
Select "Reel": This will open your camera and phone's gallery.
Choose or Create Your Video: You can select a pre-edited video from your camera roll. The mobile app also offers a more robust editing experience that's closer to the native Instagram app, letting you add trending audio, stickers, voiceovers, and more.
Craft Your Post: Once you're done editing, you’ll be taken to the composition screen where you can write your caption and add hashtags.
Choose "Scheduling Options": On the final screen, instead of tapping "Publish," look for the "Schedule for later" option.
Set the Date and Time: Choose when you want the Reel to go live and tap "Schedule."
Viewing and Managing Your Scheduled Content
So, where do you find your scheduled Reels after you've set them up? In Meta Business Suite (both desktop and mobile), navigate to the "Planner" section in the left-hand menu. This will show you a calendar view of all your scheduled and published content. From here, you can:
Get a bird's-eye view of your content calendar.
Click on any scheduled Reel to edit its details, like the caption or scheduled time.
Seamlessly drag and drop posts to reschedule them for a different day.
Delete a scheduled post entirely if needed.
Bonus Tips for a Smarter Scheduling Strategy
Engage After Posting: Scheduling saves you time, but it doesn't mean you can "set it and forget it." Make a point to be online for the first 30-60 minutes after your Reel goes live to respond to comments. This early engagement can signal to the algorithm that your content is valuable.
Be Mindful of Trends: Scheduling is perfect for evergreen content, but be careful when scheduling content based on fast-moving audio or video trends. A trend that's hot on Monday might be outdated by Friday. It's best to post time-sensitive, trendy content in real time.
Use the "Drafts" Feature: Not ready to schedule? You can save your Reel as a draft in Business Suite. This is great for getting a head start on your caption or finalizing all the details later. Simply create the post and click the dropdown next to the "Publish" button and choose "Save as draft."
Final Thoughts
Mastering how to schedule Reels in Meta Business Suite is a foundational step in building a more efficient and impactful social media strategy. It helps you stay consistent, save time through content batching, and analyze your content strategy from a holistic, calendar-based perspective.
Of course, posting consistently is only half the battle, understanding what’s actually working is what drives real growth. That’s where it becomes essential to track your performance across all of your channels. For this, we built Graphed to help analyze the data from all of your marketing and sales channels — like Instagram, Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and Shopify — in one central place through simple conversations, so you spend less time wrestling with data and more time acting on it.