How to Plan Your Instagram® Content

Planning your content for Instagram® in advance can seem super time-consuming, but it’s so worth it in the long run.

Instead of worrying every day about what to post and throwing on sub-standard content, a concise Insta plan ensures your content is consistently on point, focussed, measurable, and most importantly, quality.

If you’re an Instagram® newbie, this step by step guide will help you understand how to plan your content.

Set goals for your content

Begin by asking yourself:

What do I want to achieve with my content?

Do I want to increase brand awareness?

Am I looking for new customers?

Do I want to nurture old customers or get repeat customers?

Asking yourself these questions is a vital first step to creating a bespoke content plan.

If you don’t know your overarching goals, you can’t possibly create engaging content that helps you achieve them.

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Research your audience 

Understanding what your audience wants to see will help you deliver content that piques their interest.

To research your audience, perform an Insta stakeout, and check out what your competitors are up to.

Be sure to also search for influencers within your target audience, as they tend to be pretty on point with messaging.

Whatever you do, don’t copy or steal content! Use it as a starting point to create something equally as compelling to engage with your audience.

Focus on your niche 

Social media is a busy place, and it can be daunting to try and get your message across to potential clients. But fear not! You don’t need to produce content that appeals to everybody, just the people in your niche.

What does this mean? Well, simply, your niche is the target community on Instagram® that you hope to engage with.

You can use hashtags to direct your content to this community.

For example, if you offer dog grooming services in Chicago, a crafted tag of #DogGroomingChicago could get your content in front of the very people who might be interested in your services. 

Ask your audience

If you’re struggling with content ideas, you can literally ask your audience what they want to see.

You can create a story on your business page and create an Instagram® poll, where you can ask your audience a direct question and await their response.

This is a super simple way to conduct some market research or jump on the bandwagon of a trending topic within your niche.

Measure your results and pivot accordingly 

One particularly great thing about Instagram® is how easily you can measure your results and reflect on your content.

Spend some time looking over content that you’ve produced over a period of time, a week, for instance. Look at which posts did well and look for patterns.

Did you post at a particular time of the day?

Did you use a specific filter?

Was there something unique about the picture you posted?

Did you try out a new hashtag?

Measuring and reviewing your content is crucial to success on Insta. If certain things haven’t been working out, that’s okay! Just pivot and try something new. It’s all part of the learning process.  

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Planning your content on Instagram® doesn't have to be hard. It's all about keeping these key things in mind and taking the leap! Remember, you can always pivot your content as time goes so don't delay getting started on your content!

If you're struggling to come up with content ideas, then I've got something for you -