1. High-Quality Photos/Brand Photography: Instagram is a visual platform, no matter the trends or algorithm, so using high-quality imagery will always help you stand out from the noise.

Grab your notepad or planner and ask yourself these important questions:

• Firstly, what do you sell? Products or services?

• Who is your target audience? Get as specific as you can. To research your ideal client, my favorite tools are Pinterest and Instagram. In Pinterest, type in keywords that describe who you think that is. You will find content made intentionally for that niche. Follow the links to blog posts, Instagram, and other online platforms and read comments from other readers that share their struggles. This is GOLD for you when you are creating content!

• What hashtags would your niche use on Instagram? Set your timer for 15 minutes and type different hashtags in the search bar. Find different accounts that fit your brand’s aesthetic and core values. Follow your favorites and turn on their notifications. After that, comment with genuine reactions to posts that really hit you in a positive way.

• How do you want to look on Instagram? Light and bright? Moody? Vintage? Natural? Colorful? Whimsical? High-End?

These are a few of the questions that we work through with our clients in our onboarding kit. After 22 years of branding for my women clients, I have found that going through the client questionnaire together brings about clarity and goal setting so much better than going through it alone!

If you would like to go through the first step of our brand photography planning process for results-driven lead generation with me, I have a FREE session waiting for you! Claim yours by clicking the link.

2. User-Generated Content

User-generated content is a great way to build community and showcase your brand's impact. Encourage your followers to share photos or videos of themselves using your products or services, and repost the best ones on your own feed. This is great for digital and physical products. Once your followers start sharing their UGC, create a HIGHLIGHT on Instagram and save their posts there so that new and old followers can see them all in one place. This is a portfolio and a buyer’s stamp of approval rolled into one business-growing bundle of joy!

4. Educational Content

Carousel slides are my favorite way to showcase Tips and Tricks, Listicles (Checklists), How To’s, Steps, and Processes that make your audience’s life easier. To easily create a carousel slide, my favorite tool is Canva! They have templates for these that will save you time because they have pre-designed carousels with font-pairing, customizable brand colors, and my favorite new feature, MAGIC WRITE. Magic Write is an Artificial Intelligence Tool that allows you to create copy for faster content creation. I love it and highly recommend using it when creating all types of content.

5. Quotes or Testimonials

Here is another place where your brand photography and Canva can be used!

A designer trick is to go to Canva and grab a template for any type of Instagram post. Upload your brand photography directly into Canva and drop the image into the template so you can fade it back and place text over it for a beautiful post that will beg to be shared. Now bask in your viral moments, by batching out at least 2 weeks’ worth of quotes or testimonial templates, Educational content, UGC posts, Behind the Scenes, and gorgeous on-brand static posts using the Portrait size setting. If you do 2 quote posts a week, you only need to design 4 of them and schedule them into my favorite Instagram planner *Planoly, or SmarterQueue for all of the social media marketing platforms, including Instagram.

To learn how to use Planoly, go to their blog to get started. They have tons of education that will help you use Instagram even better AND schedule out your content for consistency and to prevent burn-out. You can even hire a VA, which I would recommend doing before you feel ready, and there are many VAs that specialize in Planoly.

Lastly, I love SmarterQueue for its ease of use and because you can post on a variety of social media marketing platforms at once. However, the best part, is that if you are unable to schedule posts for some reason, SmarterQueue will repost your best-performing content so that you don’t go radio silent!

I have been using them for years and have found that they are the only one that does this. In fact, I saw my digital product sales increase over time because of the looping of my top-ranking posts, especially from Twitter. That was a surprise because I hardly ever scroll through or use Twitter other than in my scheduler!

Your Instagram Content is Easy “Networking on Auto-Pilot”

Start here so you can start reaping the benefits ASAP

Do you want the good news first?

Personal brands have an advantage over big-budget corporations with marketing departments because we have a more-intuitive connection to our online touchpoints. Sure, some personal brands have bigger budgets to hire social media marketing managers, but the smaller you are, the more you operate with a fire in your belly to serve and succeed.

Today, I am cutting to the chase and giving you a simple content creation roadmap so overwhelm and procrastination…they are cousins you know…fade away. A good plan is the fastest way to get rid of those troublemakers!

Now, for the bad news…if you incorporate the five types of content listed below, you will leave bad news in the past because you will evolve and grow. It’s simple. But, it is also a choice. If you are committed to growth using Instagram marketing, keep reading. I’ve got you!

If not, bookmark this and come back when you are. I’ve still got you.

Let’s link arms and get planning!

3. Behind-the-Scenes Content Humanizes Your Brand and Acts as a Virtual Studio Tour and Process Sneak Peeks. Everyone loves seeing behind the curtain, right?!

• This is another place where brand photography is needed. You can enlist the help of one of your older children. My daughter Catherine was 10 years when I handed her our only cell phone and had her shoot photos of me designing and planning. (Hey, I was desperate!) You can also hire a brand photographer, like us, but make sure they understand digital marketing and content creation! You want to capture what it is like to create with you to build trust and a bridge from your social media marketing platforms, to your website, and down your sales funnels.

• Use your iPad or cell phone to film what is called b-roll. Record short videos of your morning routine, working on your products, providing your amazing services, and even your sunset strolls walking with the dogs or your kids. These are great for Instagram Reels and if you only use 5 seconds of b-roll, you can pair it with text that is applied in the Instagram App like: “If I could talk to my younger self, I would tell her to ____________ “(fill in the blank) or “Here is your permission slip to _______________.” When I go for walks, I film flowers blowing in the breeze, leaves moving with the current down the canal by my house, and my kids skipping rocks on the water at sunset. I think of them as brain breaks for my audience! These pair perfectly with a quote, a quick tip, a short client transformation story, a hashtag, and a location geo-tag for more reach. Share the Reel to your Instagram Stories and you have a two-for-one bonus!

The Conclusion

Sheesh! I shared a lot of resources along with my top 5 results-driven content ideas for Instagram! You will definitely be ahead of the competition if you take action on this blog post! But, let’s talk affiliate links for a sec…

*Planoly is a referral link, which means if you purchase a subscription, I get a small credit applied to my account as a thank you for sharing it with you.

*SmarterQueue is also a referral link, allowing you to try it for free for 30 days! It used to be 14, but they have recently increased your trial time to 30. If you love it as I did, and you sign up for a paid subscription, I will get a small commission for spreading the love.

I have tried MANY social media marketing schedulers such as Hootsuite, Hubspot, Buffer, PlannThat, Tailwind, and Later. They were all great and I feel that it is a personal preference and what fits your personality best, BUT, Smarterqueue has amazing customer service and is the only scheduler that loops your best content. That is what set them apart for me and why I recommend it!

Which one was your favorite content idea and the one you are excited to try first?