How to Create a Winning Instagram Content Strategy

Creating content is one of the most important parts of maintaining a strong Instagram presence as a business owner. Your content is a much-needed tool that gives you the opportunity to show your audience what your business is all about and why your products/services are so incredible!

As a marketing and business consultant, I place a big emphasis on content strategy with my clients. Consistent and strategic content drives engagement, visibility, and sales — if you post only occasionally or sporadically, your audience will lose interest in your posts or forget about your account altogether.

Unfortunately, content creation is one of those things that I see business owners struggle with the most when it comes to marketing. Typically, most of the entrepreneurs I speak to have a hard time knowing exactly what to post and when. Another common issue I come across is time management — as busy CEOs, how do we stay on top of a consistent Instagram content schedule without burning out entirely?

If you have wondered the same things, you are in the right place! Today we’ll be diving deep into my best information on how to build out a winning content strategy for your brand in a way that will preserve your time and sanity.

Step 1: Look at Your Calendar

The first thing you want to do when planning out your content is figure out the “gaps” between your promotions and time off. Let me explain.

It’s likely that you already know when you will be holding your biggest promotions and product launches throughout the quarter or year. Take a moment to block those dates off on your calendar. This content will be launch-centric — we’ll come back to it in a moment.

Now, go through your calendar and block off any time that you will not be working on marketing your business.

What you have left are the “gaps” between your promotions and your desired time off. It can be difficult to know what exactly to post during these stretches of time as you aren’t launching or promoting anything. Don’t worry, we’ll cover some ideas a little later. For now, it’s just important to have an idea of what your schedule will look like so that you can plan your content effectively.

Step 2: Plan Your Promotional Content for IG

Once you’re aware of the dates that you will be launching or promoting a product/service, you’ll want to plan out promotional content for Instagram. There are two types of promotional content to focus on:

Pre-Promo Content
About 4-6 weeks prior to your launch or promotion, you will want to begin to warm up your audience through pre-promo content. During your pre-promo content phase, you should be creating content that is focused on growth, connection, and engagement. This can look like educational content, mindset rewiring, or debunking industry myths. Fun, relatable, and entertaining content that helps you form a relationship with your audience also has a place in the pre-promo content phase.

The best way to save time and avoid burnout in the pre-promo content phase is to take advantage of the content format that will give you the biggest bang for your buck. Right now, Instagram Reels provide the biggest reach and visibility. Carousel posts are also a good option because they are easily save-able and share-able. Finally, don’t neglect your Instagram Stories during the pre-promo content phase — this is the tool that you use to nurture your existing audience and build deeper trust!

Live Promo Content

Once you’ve adequately warmed up your audience with 4-6 weeks of pre-promo content, it’s time to shift into the live promo content phase. This is exactly what it sounds like: content that you create and post while your promotion or launch is active. This is when you really should be focusing on the product or service you are offering, what it is and who it is for, and why it’s unique. You’ll also want to tap into your audience’s pain points (AKA what they are struggling with) and how your product or service acts as a solution for those problems.

During the live promo phase, it will be in your best interest to keep driving visibility and traffic towards your profile via Instagram Reels while also utilising your Instagram Stories to provide as much information as possible about your offer — examples of great IG Story content include Q&A sessions, tips and tricks, product/service breakdowns and demonstrations, etc.

From there, you want to make sure that your content creation process isn’t unsustainable or overwhelming. Launching or promoting a product or service can be exhausting and content adds an entirely new layer to the process. The only way to stay consistent is to ensure that you aren’t burning out on your current method. Here are a few of my best tips and tricks to help you manage content creation during this busy time:

Batch create your content. Dedicate a certain day of the week to content creation and create your content in advance. This is one of the best ways to stay on top of the process and ensure that you always have something new to post. You can even schedule your Instagram content in advance using Facebook’s Creator Studio or a third-party app, essentially allowing you to “set it and forget it” weeks or months in advance.

Get help from a team. Speaking of outsourcing to team members, I highly recommend building a team that truly understands your brand. This can take a massive weight off when it comes to producing and scheduling content, not to mention repurposing it across other platforms. If you really dislike content creation or truly don’t have the time to keep up with it consistently as a busy CEO, having support from a trusted team will allow you to focus on the things that are in your zone of genius while still staying up to date with your content, and audience engagement.

Step 3: Plan Your Content In-Between Promotions/Launches

Remember those “gaps” I mentioned briefly before — the time in-between your launches and time off? Your content strategy during this phase shouldn’t default to “fluff” simply because you aren’t actively promoting something. Instead, you should be thinking about ways you can continue to form relationships and connections with your target market, build your brand, and establish yourself as an expert. This will prepare your audience for the next time you launch or promote a product/service.

So, what should your creation process look like during this phase? You’ll want to focus on the following two things in order to make an impact while staying consistent:

Your content pillars. Content pillars are a set of themes or topics that your brand can use to create posts. Your content pillars that you choose should be consistent with your brand’s purpose, values, tone of voice, positioning and general aesthetic look and feel on social media. They should also relate back to the overarching problem that you solve. Aim to come up with 3-6 content pillars and cycle through each theme when you are creating content. This way, you always have something relevant to share without boring your audience or churning out insignificant content.

The content format that will help you achieve your goals. Certain types of content are better at achieving specific outcomes than others. The types of content you create should always align with what your intention is when using social media. If you want to grow your account, prioritise Reels in your strategy. If you want to drive sales, focus on providing free value via Carousels and selling on IG Stories. If you want to gain brand recognition, go live often and create content your audience can easily recognise and engage with.

And there you have it! A simple, no-frills content strategy you can use to stay on track throughout the year, no matter what is going on in your business.

As an award-winning marketing consultant, I know a thing or two about creating powerful content. In fact, the bespoke strategies that I’ve helped my clients create and implement have led to massive, transformational results. If you want this to be a reality in your business as well, book a triage call in now!