Want to use Instagram strategically to market your business? Fed up of posting on the fly and want to plan your content ahead of time? In this post, I will be sharing how you can plan your Instagram feed content for 30 days so that you maximise your time and ensure your content is effectively marketing your business too.

Instagram has been growing as a social media platform for a number of years, however, for a number of years, it was an annoying platform for marketers and social media managers because Instagram wouldn’t allow any schedulers to automatically post pre-scheduled content. However, in early 2018 Instagram changed the rules and would allow business accounts to automatically post scheduled content – YAY!

That changed in rule really changed my attitude to Instagram because I knew if I wanted to truly take a week off I could. I actually still have my Instagram account as a personal account (come and check me out over at @charellegriffith), but it is good to know if I was to go on holiday I could switch to business and everything could roll out without me.

That little API connection change made me think much more about the power of Instagram. There is a lot of hype around Instagram and for those business owners who have built their business of Instagram they love to shout about how amazing it is. However, it is very easy (as with any social media platform) to spend hours creating content and engaging without seeing results in your business. I don’t want that to happen for you so strategically planning your Instagram content is key. So let’s get planning!

 

Step 1: Decide on your visual aesthetic

Instagram is a visual platform and the most successful Instagram feeds have a consistent visual aesthetic. There are numerous ways to be consistent:

• Follow an image structure – Due to Instagram using a grid structure, there are a number of different patterns you can use for your images. Some examples include: one picture, one image, one picture (which results in a criss-cross pattern), every third image is something consistent and you have a column, or a new theme every row.
• Have a colour palette – Do you have a brand palette? If so you could use those colours within your Instagram feed
• Using the same filter – If you want to be more free flowing, but still have a cohesive feed then using the same filter is a great way to do that.

At this stage ,you will also want to be deciding what sort of images you will be posting. Will you only be using your own images or are you happy to use stock images or user-generated content as well? Will you only use photographs or will you be creating graphics too?

 

Step 2: Decide on your frequency

Once you have decided what you want your feed to look like it is time to think about frequency. The point of this post is to help you plan for 30 days, but how many images do you have to create to plan for 30 days? That will all be dependent on your frequency.

As with every social media platform there are best practices. Ideally, you would want to post between 1-3 times a day on Instagram. Consistency on Instagram, as with most things in marketing, is key. Therefore, it is better to start small with one post a day and once you are comfortable with that you can increase to twice or three times a day.

 

Step 3: Decide on the purpose of your content

It is easy to get caught up creating a beautiful Instagram feed, but remember this Instagram is to market your business so you need to make sure everything you are doing is supporting the growth of your business and not just the growth of your Instagram.

Firstly, you should think about your current business and marketing objectives. What service(s) are you currently promoting? Do you have a launch coming up? Do you need to be driving people to your website? Or should they be encouraged to read your blog, listen to your podcast or watch your YouTube channel?

Secondly, you should think about how you can be showing up in a more sociable way. It is social media for a reason and so every single post should not be sell, sell, watch my video, join my facebook group, check out my new course. There needs to be content that show the behind-the-scenes of your business, that gives your audience the opportunity to connect with you on a more human level and that gives the opportunity to learn more about your audience.

Making sure you are clear on what you need to promote, but also how you need to be showing up socially will help you have to an Instagram feed that drives traffic and sales, but also is an account people want to engage with. And remember in the world of social media, every platform wants highly engaged users. If you have an account that people are engaged with then Instagram will reward you by showing more people your account.

 

Step 4: Batch your content creation

Now it is time to do the work. So go back to step 2 and work out how many posts you need to create for 30 days. Then for each post you are going to need the following: images, caption and hashtags.

Image – Go back to step 1 and choose/create/edit images that are in line with your visual aesthetic.

Caption – Go back to step 3 and ensure your captions are supporting your business objectives or increasing trust and engagement.

Hashtags – Instagram allows you to have 30 hashtags per post and this is your opportunity to increase the reach of your post because hashtags are searchable.

 

Step 5: Schedule your content

As I mentioned early, in early 2018 Instagram made the announcement that it would allow API access so that schedulers could directly post. So if you would like you can now use a scheduler tool. I currently use Later which allows you to schedule 30 Instagram pictures per month for free. Later allows you to visually see how you images will appear in the Instagram layout so you can see exactly what it will look like when you images are posted. You can join Later by clicking here.

 

Step 6: Take a break, review and start again

One of the benefits of planning and creating your content in 30 days cycles is that you can have a break. Depending on how quick you are and how many posts you have it could take you between a few hours and a day to create a months worth of content. However, once you have done that you are free for the rest of the month. This means next time you are sitting down to plan the next 30 days your mind will be fresh.

Before planning your next 30 days you should always look back to see how the previous posts have performed. Which posts under and overperformed? Are there any lessons you can use for those posts to improve the next set of posts? Are you driving traffic to where you want to? Ask those questions before you sit down and start the 30-day planning process all over again.

 

GO BECOME AN INSTAGRAM FOR BUSINESS SENSATION

If you follow those 6 steps then there is no reason why you can’t be successful running your own Instagram channel. If you are new to planning then I know it can be daunting, but by spending some time, in the beginning, to get clear on what you want it will ensure that your content creation time is being used as effectively as possible. Also, by planning in advance you are free to use your time across the month to be engaging! Instagram is a social platform so don’t forget to need to be logging in to respond to comments, as well as engaging on other people’s channels.

 

I hope you have found this post helpful. If you are going to start planning in 30 days cycles please drop your Instagram handle in the comments below and I will check your profile out.