Instagram Content Planning - Building a Plan for Greater Engagement and Growth

There is no need to state the importance of Instagram in this day and age. There is a more likely chance that someone you meet on the street would have an Instagram account, especially if they’re young. Ten years ago, all young people used Twitter and Facebook. Now, the go-to platform has become Instagram.

Why has Instagram managed to gain this level of popularity? For one, Instagram is very consistent in how it displays content. You will always have something to see on Instagram, not just read. This makes it perfect for people who prefer a more visually stimulating platform.

For most consumer brands, their main goal is to always target younger audiences. The reasoning is simple. By making loyal customers out of young audiences, a brand can build a base of people who will stay with the brand for years to come. This is why Instagram is way more popular amongst brands than any other platform right now.

Success on Instagram comes through content. If you post good content regularly, you will get more traction. Trainers from the best digital marketing institutes would attest to the same. More content brings more people to your profile and generates more engagement.

However, posting random content without any planning is not the right way to go about things. In this article, we cover Instagram content planning, primarily how it should be done.

80% Education. 20% Promotion

We all use social media to be engaged and informed. This is why when a brand consistently tries to sell us something, we get turned off and reject the message being sent by the brand.

It is possible that what the brand is promoting might actually be very useful to us. However, over-promotion has already killed any desire we have to do business.

The one basic principle marketers must induce in their content plan is not over-promoting their products. It is natural for a brand to milk its following on Instagram to make direct money. However, when these promotions pass a given limit, they become jarring and are considered interruption marketing by many in the target audience.

The 80-20 rule works great in such a scenario. Post engaging content 80% of the time and promote your brand the other 20% of the time.

Milk Big Occasions

Let’s say you are running a simple Instagram profile on famous quotes and Valentine’s Day is coming up. How many times are you going to post? Two? Three? Why not ten or twelve?

Marketers are guilty of sticking by general trends. They see a big day approaching but do not account for the heavy rush of traffic and engagement they can get on such a day.

Take Valentine’s Day as an example. If the business you run contributes in a real way to the people who are interested in Valentine’s Day, pull out on all the stops and fill your Insta feed with content and stories. It is days like these that can bring more people to your profile and expand your audience more than ever before.

Experiment

Don’t fall into the trap of sticking to a tried-and-tested content strategy. Always think of new ways of how you can create content that will resonate with the target audience and bring more people towards the brand.

In Conclusion

Instagram is a great platform for brands to express their identity and gain relevant followers as a consequence. Brands who plan the content they post based on their audience are much more likely to do well in terms of engagement and followers. In this article, we covered how people should plan their Instagram content strategy in a bid to gain more engagement and grow followers.

About the Author - Gaurav Heera is the founder and CEO at Eduburg. He has experience of working with many top brands and companies as a marketing consultant. His work with Eduburg India has led to the institute becoming one of the most sought-after names for taking up a digital marketing institute in Delhi.