When you're not following a plan on social media, it's easy to forget to post regularly.
Additionally, creating image and video-based content meant to drive revenue for your business can seem far from your bottom line.
However, 90% of people on Instagram follow at least one business nowadays. To compete with other companies in your industry, you must have a solid Instagram strategy, especially if your intended audience uses the app.
Fortunately, once you have an ideal plan for your Instagram content, you can create content more intentionally and ultimately drive more results for your team and organization.
All fields are required.
Click this link to access this resource at any time.
Once you've decided on the type of content you want to post, you'll want to select a visual theme for your posts.
Aesthetic consistency will help you in several ways:
If you use Adobe Spark, you can download our free Adobe Spark Instagram templates to create a new post with a template rather than starting from scratch. You'll also get access to the previously-mentioned calendar of content ideas.
To establish visual consistency across your posts, pay attention to the colors in your photos, the filters you use, the fonts you use in your images, and, if you'd like, the pattern of content types you're posting.
Once you've decided on the content type and visual theme you'll use on your brand's Instagram account, it's time to start planning posts.
Create a spreadsheet with the following columns (or download our free, pre-made spreadsheet along with planning templates for all of your other social media channels, too):
When you're done, it should look like this:
Pro Tip: Duplicate the spreadsheet tab for Instagram Stories, as well, to leverage Instagram's other avenue for engaging with your followers. Stories are best used for interactive content like polls and quizzes, sharing photos or videos from live events, and more casual, friendly updates.
Once you have your spreadsheet ready to go, decide on your frequency. We recommend ramping up to posting around three times per week.
Post at least once a week to establish a reliable posting pattern for your followers. You'll risk losing followers if people feel that they're not consistently seeing interesting or helpful content from your account.
To establish that consistent pattern, set dates and times for posting first. For example, if you decide to post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, fill in the date and time column with the next month's Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
Then, add a recurring event to your calendar for post planning for the following two to four weeks. Set a recurring 10-minute calendar invitation at your selected posting times to reference your spreadsheet and quickly post what you've planned if you're not using an automated scheduling tool. With the planning sheet handy, you'll be able to copy and paste captions and links and locate the images for your posts easily.
When slotting specific posts into your spreadsheet, begin in whichever column you'd like. For example, you could start by evenly splitting the rows into separate campaigns and filling in the caption or image link for each post later.
If you already have a repository of photos that you can post, you might start pasting the links into the Image File Name/Link column and fill in the other columns afterward.
You'll also want to start creating more visual content for future posts. For example, consider repurposing event images that your company has taken, soliciting photos of your employees or customers using your product, or simply creating visually-appealing text graphics like this one on a tool like Canva or Photoshop.
Upload each photo to a centralized folder and use a standardized naming convention so that it's easy to find the file you're looking for. If you're not using a post-scheduling tool, you'll likely have to post directly from your phone.
To easily access photos with their file names from your phone, you can upload photos to a Google Photos album on your computer and then use the Google Photos app to download the content before posting directly.
Learn how to get followers, build your audience, navigate algorithm updates, and measure success.
