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Instagram is such a busy social media platform! It’s all visuals and content flying from everywhere, and your presence can easily fade into the distance if you go in without an Instagram content plan.
Like any other business strategy, you must prepare for it and go for the kill. Let’s look at how to do this without getting overwhelmed.
8 Useful Ways to Implement an Instagram Content Plan
Here is everything you need to get things going. Dig in!
1. Be Clear about the Lifestyle You’re Selling
You may think you’re selling a product or service, but what you’re selling is what that person will become when they use your products or services. This is the message you need to pass across with your content.
Are you targeting homemakers that love beautiful decor pieces placed strategically in their spaces? Show them the endless possibilities with home inspiration videos, satisfied customers already enjoying their newfound lifestyle, and why these pieces are beautiful and worth buying.
Stay consistent with your messaging and appeal to your clientele.
2. Establish Your Brand Voice
Serious, fun, laid back, or quirky? No, these aren’t the only tone options. You can sound however you want, depending on how receptive your audience will be to it.
Do you want to ask questions regularly or just make statements? Would you like to use emojis or not? A tagline or specific words, perhaps?
Your tone and communication style should be consistent. Don’t be afraid to use your words. You want your captions to feel familiar to your audience every time. How do you want them to ‘hear’ you?
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
3. Establish Your Visual Style
Your Instagram content plan must factor in aesthetics. It’s all about the visuals! The visual style you settle for needs to capture what your brand embodies and appeal to your audience. It’s not an unintentional mish-mash of colors but a carefully curated set of hues.
Consider the following elements:
- Colors
Does your brand look better with warm colors or cool colors? Will you incorporate your colors into every post?
- Templates
You can use templates or have every post look original and different.
- Grid
Would you prefer a themed grid, or will your images be independent?
- Text
You can either have plain images or have them overlaid with some text.
4. Choose Content Themes
You have a lot to showcase on your Instagram content plan, and that’s great. It would be even better if you put this content in order.
Group your content according to appropriate themes such as products, testimonials, inspiration, behind-the-scenes, before and after, recipes, and such.
Add anything as long as it works for your niche and elevates your business.
5. Determine the Appropriate Posting Schedule
Consistency is key when it comes to engagement. You could post daily, weekly, or every hour. Whichever frequency you choose, be sure to stick to it. Your audience needs to see more and more of your work for you to establish a relationship with them.
It’s always so disappointing to see an Instagram account with great content only to realize they last posted several months ago. To avoid this, schedule posts in advance. Even when life happens, your page will continue running.
The more you post, the better you’ll be able to understand your audience. You’ll see what they respond to and when they’re most likely to engage.
Photo by Lukas
6. Study Your Audience
You are in business, but your customers call the shots. Their preferences and habits will determine the direction your Instagram content plan takes. Gather as much information as you can about them.
Look at the analytics for your business page to find out when your page receives the most visitors. How old are they? What gender are they? Where are they from? You can capitalize on these times and make your content relevant. You want your audience to come back for more content.
7. Take Advantage of Special Days and Seasons for Offers
Recognized holidays offer so much room for offers and discounts. You can play around with product or service bundles. O2nce in a while, you can offer a discount ‘just because’ and sales will move.
While you are on Instagram to sell or advertise, you don’t want to be the content creator constantly pitching clients. Make room for fun posts and celebrate quirky holidays too. Do a little digging and talk about holidays that nobody ever remembers. Build your content around these without necessarily selling anything. What’s that they say about Jack and no play? Don’t be Jack.
Photo by cottonbro
8. Use Various Content Types for Your Instagram Content Plan
Instagram is no longer just a place to showcase photos. It offers more types of content using which creators can engage their audiences. Plan and use some of these options:
Photos
You can’t ignore the power of a beautiful photo. You can use these for product images, educating your audience, and sharing inspiration and quotes. Add a great caption, and it makes for a winning combination.
Reels
Are 15 seconds all you need? Use reels. They’re short clips, and you can manipulate them with audio overlays to create something great.
Videos
You can go up to two minutes with videos. Use these when you need to show something longer, such as your team in action or products. The usual vertical, landscape and square formats are supported.
Stories
Have spur-of-the-moment content? Stories work very well for this. They only stay up for 24 hours, but if you’d prefer to keep them longer, save them as highlights, and they’ll remain permanent.
IGTV
IGTV is for longform videos such as podcasts. It can take up to 60 minutes.
Shopping
Would you like your customers to shop directly from Instagram? All customers need to do is click on the item. Shopping tools allow for this in the mobile version.
User-Generated Content
If your customers love your products and create content around them, you can also use the content on your page. It makes your business look more real since people can see it impacting real people.
Remember always to give credit to the original creator.
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay
Final Word
Instagram may seem overwhelming, but it can be lots of fun. If it’s too much for you, consider getting a content planner to help. Make this awesome app work for your business.
