Instagram Content
DAY 6 LESSON: VALUABLE CONTENT IDEAS & SCHEDULING
Before you proceed, make sure you've taken screenshots of your Instagram Profile (including the current number of follwers/following and your feed). Your screenshots will show you the transformation and improvements your Instagram will undergo through out the challenge. Ready? GO.
How do you exactly give value using your Instagram?
In order to give value to your audience, you’d want to know who exactly you’re talking to.
Start with your target audience. Let us make a case for you as a Fitness Professional. In this case, you are a Personal Trainer who wants to reach out to more people who can will avail your coaching programs.
On Instagram, most likely you’ll have two target audiences: People likely to avail your services; and your fellow fitness trainers. Ask yourself, what can you post to provide value to them? To answer these, you got to ask more questions.
For the first audience — people who might avail your services — think about why they might avail it. Besides the obvious (“they like it because they think they need it”), most people avail fitness coaching services because the story behind the trainer resonates with them, inspires them, makes them happy, or they have a fitness goal, that through sharing your journey, they think you can help them achieve. Those are the things they value.
On Instagram, you provide value to them by fulfilling those desires. You share your fitness story and coaching journey to give them a bit of inspiration and happiness in their feeds.
Here’s a way to better understand the specific value you provide to people — both on Instagram and off it. To get a clearer sense of the value you provide, ask your current or past clients, and also those who are actively following you on Instagram, why they do so. Their answers will teach you a lot.
Pay close attention to the words they use —patterns will emerge that clarify your UVP = Unique Value Proposition of your work and Instagram posts. Now capitalize on that.
On the other hand, you have to provide a different value to the second part of your target audience, fellow personal trainers. They might follow you to see your creative process, how you overcome struggles, how you approach and sell your services/programs, where you find inspiration, and because they relate to the work you do.
Consider the fitness pros that you follow and the reasons why— what’s the value they provide to you?
Most likely, Fitness professionals will follow you for the same reason you follow other fitness pros. That’s the value you can provide them. To further zero-in on that value, think about what you wish some fitness professionals out there shared on social media and share that with your followers. Do you wish they talked more about lack of motivation and plateauing? About their clients? That they showed more step-by-step explanations of their coaching business?
Whatever it is, do that.
CONTENT IDEAS YOU CAN MIX AND MATCH (GOOD FOR A MONTH!)
Understanding what you are going to post throughout the month is as simple as taking a few minutes to look at the calendar ahead and taking note of anything that your audience might find enjoyable to see, read, share and engage with.
Let’s try to breakdown how you’ll be able to plan valuable content good for a month:
- ESTABLISH THE MONTH’S THEME/CELEBRATIONS/HOLIDAYS
Knowing what is coming up in popular culture is social marketing 101. If you’re not currently sharing social media posts around these themes at least occasionally, I think you’ll find that you are missing out on opportunities to connect with new followers.
For example, The Oscars are typically in February and fashion and beauty bloggers know that planning their schedule around important events like the Oscars, they will be able to produce content that is timely and useful for their audience.
Examples:
- Fashion Round-up: What to wear during Red Carpet occasions
- Dress Like Hollywood: Affordable alternatives in achieving The Oscars looks
- Cop The Oscar looks: Make-up Techniques to Get That Red-Carpet Ready Beauty!
The more you engage with popular themes on your social media and use relevant hashtags, the more likely you are to hit the spot for new and existing followers. But make sure to NOT overuse the exact trending hashtag – they usually have millions of posts. For example, it’s May (Mother’s Day month!) and you want to offer new mothers and mothers-to-be a fitness program that’s suitable for them. If you search for #MothersDay, it has 8million ++ posts. You can look for related hashtags that have fewer amount of posts to reach more audiences (example: #mothersdaycard, #mothersDaySurprise)
Another example: Health Bloggers talk about Mental Health topics extensively during the Mental Health Month that is celebrated in February. They usually come up with a series of content on various mental health topics. #MentalHealthMonth
Nowadays, there are quite a lot of hashtag celebrations that are made up on the internet due to popularity or which started as a trending topic. Examples are #NationalHugday or #NationalFunAtWorkDay. You can also capitalize on these and position your brand creatively and make your post timely and relevant.
Resources: National Holiday Website, Sendible
- PLOT OUT WHEN YOU’LL PUBLISH CONTENT ON OTHER PLATFORMS
It’s important to have an idea of the different blog posts videos, campaigns, and things you will be sharing on your blog, Youtube Channel, newsletter, etc. This will be considered your overall content calendar. With this calendar in hand, go ahead and fill in a few areas on your Instagram grids during content planning and schedule when you will promote your recent content, offers, and freebie opt-ins to your followers.
- COLLABORATE WITH CO-CONTENT CREATORS/INFLUENCERS/BRAND BUILDERS
Start by making a list of followers to follow and to mention. Make sure you have a considerable relationship with them that’s at a good standing before you go and mention them. Mentioning others is a great way to increase your reach to new people who may not be aware of your brand and also build relationships with industry leaders and colleagues. So, save a few days on your Instagram content scheduling for mentioning people and influencers who are related to your niche. These people may be influencers that your audience may already follow or someone you think they may want to follow.
- ESTABLISH YOUR AUTHORITY IN YOUR NICHE
What better way to establish authority in your niche by sharing your knowledge? The simple use of tips and tricks is a great way to increase awareness of your brand but also gives your following a helping hand. These types of post are great because they aren’t promotional but they stay on topic (your offers/services). You can also include recent news and industry reports on your niche so you’ll easily become the go-to resource for your category of expertise.
- FILL IN A FEW STORIES AND CONTENT ABOUT YOU
Your followers don’t always want to hear about you, but it’s good to sneak in a day or two on your Instagram calendar where you help your following get to know you better. These can be posts about how messy (or organized) your mom/dad life is OR it could be a long story about how you got started in your business. We’ll talk more about authenticity in our final lesson tomorrow!
- UTILIZE HUMAN INTEREST POSTS
Inspiring quotes and humor are little bite sized but share worthy posts that act as fillers in your Instagram content schedule. In fact, you may find that these get the most likes and or comments because they are quick and easy items for your followers to engage with. Memes and motivational quote works wonders (that will fit your theme!). Try it!
- RESEARCH, CREATE, AND GATHER FREE RESOURCES:
Spend a day or two batch creating and shooting images OR downloading free stock photos online so that you can fill in your Instagram Content schedule with related images, graphics, and links. Don’t overthink this and just start looking for inspiration and resources because they’re too many online and the only possible reason why you won’t see one you like is because you didn’t want to look in the first place!
Here’s an example of what a month of content might look like:
DAY 5 MINI-MISSION: CREATE A SIMPLE ONE WEEK (7-DAY) CONTENT SCHEDULE/GUIDE
Using various mix of the content ideas above, create a 7-day idea/guide for content. You don’t need to post everyday if that’s not your style or if you personally don’t believe that daily posting works on your Instagram Brand, just make sure for this mission you’d be able to help yourself not stress out on what to post, what to say, what to share on Instagram. Follow this format just like our Content Calendar Guide
Date –> Topic/Prompt –> Media –> Caption –> Inspiration/Reference
Repeat 7x for 7 day content.
EXTRA TIP OF THE DAY
Tips on writing a caption!
- DRAFT OUT YOUR CAPTIONS AHEAD OF TIME
But don’t stress about getting everything perfect before you schedule your posts
You’re going to read a lot of tips and tricks for creating an engaging Instagram caption, but don’t let it get to you. It’s often way better to have something written in draft mode than it is to have nothing at all. Even if it’s written in your notes app with a bunch of draft ideas.
The next time you sit down to schedule your Instagram posts and photos, remember that even just a few bullet points as a caption idea (to help you get started) is better than nothing!
- MAINTAIN A CONSISTENT STYLE OF WRITING FOR YOUR CAPTIONS.
Consistency is key. One thing you’ll notice about some of the largest brands and influencers on Instagram is that they maintain a very consistent caption style and brand voice. That consistency might be readily available to see when you browse their grid of stunning and flawless photos, but what you don’t see on the grid at first glance are the captions!
So, the next time you see a brand with over 10k followers, pay attention. If their audience is responding with their likes and comments day after day, then chances are their consistent and have honed in on what their audience likes from them. Once you maintain some consistency, you should be able to repeat what works. Until you do, you will never know. So – give it a try!
BEGIN WITH:
Practical example: make your first line intriguing by adding a title to your caption
You may have seen @fnfattire or other brands do this before, but if you’re having trouble thinking of ways to make your first line interesting, then think about a single word or short phrase, to sum up the rest of your caption.
END WITH:
Practical example: CALL-TO-ACTION in your Instagram caption. Remember that your audience won’t likely do anything if you don’t ask them to. So, if you want them to read a blog post or check out your Instagram stories, then ask! If you want more engagements you can go from directly saying “DOUBLE TAP IF YOU RELATE” to asking them to tag a friend who can relate or just straight up asking a question and tell them to comment their answers!
- BE NATURAL, BE YOURSELF.
Don’t force a caption when you can’t think of words to say. You’re already doing so much – right? Keeping your captions natural and in your own tone-of-voice will ensure that you maintain authenticity in your brand. So, if you can’t read your caption without sounding cheesy, then it’s probably not natural and may even be a bit sales-y
THAT'S IT FOR DAY 6!
We hope you're inspired to create more meaningful content for your audience to help your brand grow. Don't get caught by overthinking or over analyzing. Decide now and tweak it later. There's always lots of room to learn and experiment!!
Go Back to the Facebook Group to share your insights and catch up with the community. Make sure to engage with your team mates!