90% of Instagram users follow a business, the majority of which use it to learn more about a product or service. Per a recent survey, 78% of respondents see brands and companies on Instagram as popular, making it an ideal piece of the “discovery” portion of your sales funnel.

Like many business owners you may be thinking “I want to leverage Instagram more, but coming up with content is too much work.”

It can feel like a daunting task for a novice, but like most marketing channels, with the right planning, batch-creating Instagram content can fit naturally into your business schedule.

Being able to batch your Instagram post creation will save you a lot of precious time too. Here are our top tips on how to create a month’s worth of Instagram posts in one day:

1. Research your post content

What type of information (content) do you want to share with your target audience? What are the right hashtags to use in your posts?

When you are researching ideas for Instagram content, consider how it supports your ideal customer. What would keep your followers engaged in what you are posting?

Spend a little time researching what type of content you should post on Instagram that helps tell the story of your company. Is there content you can leverage from your blog? What about common questions from people looking for your services.

You don’t want your Instagram feed to just be a promotion about your company every single day. Instead, it should be a mix of relevant, useful content that is supplemented by pieces of your brand personality.

Writing good Instagram captions isn’t hard to do. We suggest crafting one to three sentences that describe the image. A good Instagram caption captures your brand’s voice and tells a story with context about why you are sharing this particular piece of content.

Finding hashtags for your Instagram posts requires a little research. Look at what people in your industry are using. It is also good to read the comments on posts you like, see which hashtags get used as that can be an indication of hashtags worth trying out.

2. Create a content calendar

It’s important to plan your Instagram content in advance. Content planning allows you to be strategic and develop a consistent schedule. One of the simplest ways to create a content calendar is using a spreadsheet.

List your dates across the top row and your content categories down the left side, then fill in what you’re posting throughout the month. For example, if you own a spa you may have categories like weekly specials, staff highlights, featured treatments, and more.

Add any special events and upcoming promotions to your calendar as well. You should factor in anything your marketing team would want to promote for the month into your content schedule.

Your calendar will help guide you on what your schedule will look like (daily posting vs posting three times a week), what types of posts you need, and where you need new content versus being able to reuse a prior post.

3. Create your images

Planning all of your social media images in advance will help alleviate the scramble to shoot photos the day you plan to post. You can do a few things to stay ahead of the game:

Use templates

If you have a consistent visual brand, make your own Instagram image templates. Use Canva or Adobe Spark, both free tools, to help you create a fast and easy way to create your images from one design. Templates help your images stay consistent and saves time so you’re not creating every post image from scratch.

Keep your images simple and avoid using a lot of text over a photo in your posts. Unlike Facebook or Twitter, Instagram is very graphic-heavy, and using a lot of text over an image can water down the message.

Consider your post type

Instagram content like photos, stories, and reels all display differently within your Instagram feed. You’ll want to make sure you consider the dimensions of your image or video and how it will display in your feed.

Reels are great for videos. Videos on Instagram have great engagement and are great for showing off behind-the-scenes content.

Photos are more traditional on Instagram, but can also be used to show off special events or offer sneak peeks of what’s new at your company. You can include multiple photos in a single post. This is particularly good for before and after photos.

Stories are perfect for short videos that last 24 hours on your feed. They allow you to display current promotions and give your audience an inside look at what your business is all about.

4. Save time with automation tools

Instagram’s API has made it easier than ever for businesses to connect the various social media platforms like Instagram and automate their content across channels.

There’s no reason to log in to Instagram each day to post. Use scheduling software like Sendible to set up all your posts in one day. By using scheduling software you are able to stay focused on your day-to-day operations and not worrying about getting your Instagram posts published.

Many of these programs will also provide you with robust analytics on the performance of your posts, letting you know which posts resonate the most with your audience. Couple this with your site data and you’ll have a clear view of how Instagram is helping build your business online.

Need support?

We offer full social media marketing support, including social media strategy planning, social media management, and social media advertising. Contact us to discuss how we can best help your business.