Since when did Instagram become more of a necessity than a joy? Take me back to the good ol’ days when the thought of Instagram didn’t stress me out.
Now it’s, gotta plan out my content, gotta engage, gotta comment, gotta story every day, gotta rotate hashtags, gotta grow the following.
Is this the only way to do Instagram anymore? Here’s how I’ve simplified my own Instagram routine so I can free up time, engage more with my community, and actually enjoy the platform again.
Note: At the time of writing this post I was still actively strategizing and pursuing growth on social media. Now, I am prioritizing networking and SEO as a means for lead generation – with the ultimate goal of getting off social media completely. I felt like this needed to be said – carry on!
Develop a Mission Statement for Your Instagram Content
What about your brand, service and offerings inspires your audience to take action, to learn, and to continue to connect with you? Create a mission statement that guides your Instagram content to do just that.
Your statement should answer – why am I even creating content on this platform? What unique value will my audience reap from this platform? And, what is the benefit to my brand in serving on this platform?
Having this statement will help focus your content as well as simplify your content creation process!
Schedule Content the First of the Month
This goes without saying, but really, pick a day of the month and just sit down and schedule out as much content as you possibly can.
I do this particularly for Instagram by scheduling a photo shoot day about every quarter – that provides me with enough photo content for a couple of months. Then, I upload the pictures to Planoly, arrange my grid, and let those pictures sit until I’m ready to go in and create descriptions.
Once a month, I go in and schedule out as many posts as possible. Since my photos are already aligned the way I want them, I just go in and create the posts, schedule, and call it a day!
Schedule Time In Your Day
Working hard one day a month to schedule Instagram content leaves you completely free the rest of the month to focus on intentionally and genuinely engaging with your audience! It gives you time to actually have fun, to create stories, to comment on other accounts, and to respond to your own comments and messages.
Create Hashtag Groups
If you use Planoly, make use of this awesome feature! On Planoly, you can create categories of hashtags related to your brand that you can then copy and paste right into your descriptions (yes, I do firmly believe this is where the hashtags go, but that’s for another blog for another day.)
If you don’t use Planoly, keep a running list on a Google Doc of hashtag groupings you typically use. Keep this list fresh and updated so you’re not using stale hashtags six months from now.
Only Follow Accounts that Inspire You
This one is a biggie, and so key to our online social sanity! Don’t fall into the “follow everyone” trap. Then your feed is cluttered with images that don’t evoke emotion within you. Plus, there’s no way you can genuinely engage with 1,000 accounts or more – it’s just not possible. So, only follow accounts whose content truly inspires, motivates and encourages you and that makes you think, “Yes! I crave to see this content every day.”
