5 tips for planning your Instagram content
Planning your Instagram content is key to saving time and maximising productivity.
Can I get an AMEN?🙏🏻
Want to start posting more on Instagram and start regularly showing up for your audience? Then you have to start planning your content!
If this is something you've been putting off, or if you've been overwhelmed by the idea of just starting - then use the below tips to help you kick-start your planning process.
1. Keep a note of all your ideas
Keep a note or a ‘bank’ of content ideas topped up and add new thoughts and ideas in there daily. This can include good and bad ideas. Spend 5 minutes reading through your most recent DMs, paying attention to the questions you were asked, comments that were made, and conversations you had, to spark inspiration for your next piece of content. (Make sure to write everything down.)
2. Create and use content categories (or content pillars)
Content categories/or content pillars are simply topics that you create content around. They are essentially themes that you stick to and what you are known for. They help you create and share content in a way that is relatable to your audience by providing them with a full scope of who you are, what you do, and why you do it.
It’s important to establish these content categories for yourself so that you don’t have to create something from scratch every time you want to post. The aim is to spread brand awareness, create relationships, and build trust that eventually leads to a steady stream of clients. Here are some content categories for you to consider using.
EXAMPLES:
Personal insight:
Share your tips, tricks, and hacks related to what you do, values that you live by, or ways that you have found to make life better or easier that your audience would value, connect with, and benefit from.
Behind the scenes:
This invites your audience to see “real life” behind your business. You can include things that are helping you, share any productivity-boosting techniques, you can give a snap of your day, or share a trick of your trade.
Benefits of your brand:
This type of content includes any social proof such as client testimonials, success stories and results. You can also list everything you do to help your clients and customers.
Encouragement:
Here is your opportunity to spread positivity encouragement and share anything inspirational and motivational or even a relatable meme.
Showcase your service/product/offer:
Explain what you do and how you help your audience. Here you can share any business secrets and highlight what makes you different from your competitors.
Your "why":
By sharing why you do what you do - your audience feels connected to you. Explain why you are passionate about your profession (e.g. list 3 things you love about your job).
"How-to" content:
Educational content provides your audience with actionable steps to help them solve a problem or overcome something. You want your audience to like and trust you - this category is important to include as it will help form these two factors.
3. Track and study your existing content
It’s important to regularly go through your Instagram insights and study your content metrics. You should never ‘guess’ what works for your audience because your Instagram Insights will tell you everything you need to know!
By regularly monitoring your Instagram content’s insights you will be more aware of what content is performing well and what is not. This way you are able to make improvements and adjustments to your content daily.
How to see your post Insights on Instagram
To see post insights on Instagram, navigate to your Instagram profile and click the button the “Insights” button directly above your posts. You can also, click on the hamburger menu on the top right-hand corner and tap Insights. There, you’ll be able to see Insights for all of your posts, reels, live videos, and other content. You can also view your insights on individual posts - a separate Blog post is coming for this soon!
Measuring Your Effectiveness With Instagram Insights
Once you can identify what your audience likes and engages with the most - you can then take steps to improve your Instagram strategy based on the metrics.
4. ‘Recycle’ & Re-purpose Your old Content
Re-purposing means taking one piece of content, e.g. a list or a tip, a formula, or an inspirational message, and then using it in multiple ways.
This way, just one piece of writing is getting used in a variety of ways, and you are getting a lot more out of it when it comes to your time spent on the copy (writing) of this piece of content.
Here's what you can do:
✔️Look at your Instagram insights and study your best performing posts (where you have the most saves, and where you’ve had the highest reach)
✔️Dig up old captions, you can also go through your Instagram on a desktop computer and copy & paste your captions into a Notes/Word document.
✔️If you've created a Graphic - you can re-purpose this by taking the message and creating a Reel (with the same message).
✔️If you've written a great caption on a photo - consider taking the text and putting it inside a quote or a Carousel.
✔️If you've created an Instagram Carousel or an Infographic - take the essential message and put it into a new format (a bulleted list with a bold heading).
You could consider re-wording your re-purposed content it in a different way by adding a new perspective/point of view, or adding more volume (value) to your message.
People are often busy and don't pay close attention on social media. They often won't notice certain things and miss posts, so you shouldn't worry about repeating your message. However, it is worthwhile using content from 4+ weeks - 6 months ago (as opposed to from the previous week.)
Re-purposing and reusing your content every few months can also minimise content creation burnout.
5. prioritise Creating Helpful Content
Posting helpful content for free is one of the best ways to build trust with your audience. It's worth planning at least 25-50% of your content to be educational or valuable in some way. Because when your ideal client sees you posting helpful content, they will start to like you and trust you (since they will feel that you are helping them solve something.)
This leads to them trusting you as a resource and expert, and then they think of you when they need your product or service. It also will keep them coming back to your profile because they know they can access good, quality information there.
Here are some examples of great heading to spark helpful content ideas:
☑️ 5 Resources to help you ______
☑️ Ultimate Cheatsheet on _____
☑️ How to ____ in 3 days
☑️ The easiest way to________
6. Get Your Calendar Out And Plan Ahead
To help you reduce overwhelm, break down your content creation into more manageable pieces, focusing on one week at a time. This means planning, creating, and recording your content in batches. By planning your content ahead (at least one week in advance), you will become a lot more efficient with your time. This will save you a lot of stress in the long run, but will require you to be very organised.
Plan one day each week where you batch your content creation for the week ahead!
The batching process looks different for everyone, but some helpful tips include writing out all scripts and setting aside some uninterrupted time to focus, write, create and record. Here are ways in which you can start planning your content ahead:
☑️ Decide which days (or times e.g. Monday morning) you will use to brainstorm and create new content. Ideally, pick times when you're feeling most creative, and you'll have minimal or no distractions around you.
☑️ Keep a topped up 'bank' of content ideas, which you can dip into each week.
☑️ Create a simple social media calendar for yourself.
☑️ Create content in bulk / in batches at least 1 week in advance.
⚠️here’s is my biggest tip⚠️
JUST START! Schedule 1 hour right now in your calendar to start brainstorming, and you'll instantly be one step ahead.
Making a plan to start using Instagram for your brand or business does not have to be overwhelming if you strategically plan ahead and keep on top of it.