Tips for Creating an Instagram Content Strategy and Content Plan
Research shows that companies which have mapped out their content strategy have more success, get a greater return on investment, and can more accurately plan their content marketing budget. With the help of a content strategy, you can determine where your Instagram account is lacking, generate evergreen ideas, avoid becoming boring on Instagram, and plan out your posts in advance.
With a content strategy, plan, and schedule in place, you can evaluate where your money is going, keep your eye on the prize, and spend less time doing the heavy lifting of actually producing content.
In this piece, we’ll examine the three cornerstones of Instagram content marketing: strategy, plan, and schedule.
Distinguishing Content Strategy, Content Plan, and Content Calendar
Content strategy
Your content strategy lays out your long-term objectives and the specific actions you will take to realise them. A content strategy for Instagram, for instance, may be broken down into sections dedicated to things like your end objectives, your Instagram rivals, the content formats you’re interested in using, and so on. Here, we’ll go through the fundamentals of what makes up a successful content strategy.
Content Plan
It lays out the categories and themes of content you’ll produce to achieve your goals.
Content Calendar
It monitors the timestamps of your planned content distribution. Content calendars and content plans are often used interchangeably but are essentially the same thing.
Strategies for Organizing Content
There is no shortage of content strategy frameworks available to help you organise your objectives and concepts. Choose the one you like most, or mix and match elements from several frameworks to create your own method.
3H Framework
YouTube’s marketing department commissioned the creation of this framework. Three Hs, or 3H, stands for “Hero,” “Hub,” and “Help” (sometimes referred to as How To). Of course, other tactics, such as 5H, 8H, etc., that are based on the same premise, have also emerged in recent years. Yet, the 3H structure serves as a starting point. After all, what exactly are these three Hs?
Hero: The hero of your story is content that really helps you grow your audience and improve your other KPIs. Creating this kind of material is difficult since it takes a lot of time. Special promotions and brand partnerships, influencer and other brand collaborations, and major events are all examples of Hero content. At any rate, it’s not something you should do frequently.
Hub: Stories, articles, and Reels that you create and release on a regular basis.
Help: Content that is both highly relevant to your target audience and helpful in addressing their needs and issues.
If your company has a sizable content crew, this framework is a great fit. But, if your marketing approach involves a lot of time-sensitive actions, it might be challenging to manage.
Agile Framework
Using this method of posting can be efficient if your organisation consistently cranks out new articles, and if you have a wide variety of articles, videos, and infographics in your content backlog. Unique to this method is that it does not necessitate the use of predetermined subjects or a predetermined content matrix. In contrast to larger organisations, small enterprises and content teams may benefit greatly from this structure since it allows for frequent content creation without the need for ongoing oversight prior to publication.
Ways to Create a Content Strategy
Let’s quickly go through what you should do to begin developing your Instagram content marketing plan.
In other words, know what you want.
Have a plan for what you hope to accomplish with your Instagram posts. Raise metrics like engagement rate, reach, and website visits, as well as anything else you deem important.
Target Audience Identification
Understanding your audience is crucial to the success of your material. Very important if you’re simply getting your product, service, or brand out there into the world.
Researching your competition, reaching out to influencers that you believe share your prospective consumers, and conducting polls and surveys with current customers to learn what they want to see on your Instagram profile are all other ways to learn more about your audience.
Conducted a Content Analysis
Examine what you’ve already posted on Instagram, identify your strengths and areas for improvement, consider whether or not your existing material is in line with your objectives, and then plan your next move. Don’t just stick to the feed that Instagram gives; explore the other features as well.
Choose the Material for Preparation
Above, we indicated that you shouldn’t write off any of the content categories that Instagram now supports. But, you can develop one sort of content more frequently than others if you believe (or already know for sure) that a certain content form performs badly for your audience or is incredibly tough to make.
Create a Content Strategy and a Content Timeline
Identify a programme that will assist you in organising your Instagram posts for the following month, including the subjects and media types you intend to share.
Preparing your Instagram posts in advance is a time-saver, will keep your material in the spotlight, and will boost your output.
One Must Consider the Cost of Premium Content
Some interesting additions to your Instagram content strategy include influencer marketing, branded material on Instagram, and partnerships with other companies. Instagram’s native promotion tool may help you find channels where your content might be a good fit as a sponsor or where your best posts would benefit from a boost.
Consider Your Efforts
There is no use in pursuing any plan, no matter how well-conceived, if analytics are not included. Figure out which metrics are most important, and keep tabs on them. If you use Instagram’s native Insights tool, you may monitor not just the growth of content-related metrics but also of those that are unrelated to it.