21 Ways to Make Consistency on Instagram Easier
Showing up consistently on Instagram can be a frustrating task in any business owner’s day. The entire goal of my business is to help make showing up just a little bit easier, so I’m going to give you a list of ideas to help make the most of your time you’re spending on Instagram. Pick a few ideas from this list to implement to help you build a routine that actually works for you.
Let’s do it!
Posting to the Feed
Getting incredibly clear on your content pillars is going to change the game for you. I know so many people teach content pillars in so many different ways, but here’s how I like to teach it in my membership: content pillars are guidelines to help provide some structure for you to build your content around. They should easily bridge the gap between what your dream clients are looking for and what you do, making you the person who offers the exact solution they’re looking for.
Don’t be afraid to share some of your personality, especially if you’re a service provider that will be working with clients directly. By sharing more than just your offers, you’re allowing people in and starting to build that know-like-trust factor with your audience. Through nurture content, you’re showing people the human behind the brand, and if you’re a service provider, the human they could potentially work with.
Learning to batch your content will save you hours every week. The easiest way to batch is to build your list of content ideas and assign them a post type (Reel, Carousel, etc.). From there, you write out all the captions for all of the posts for the week. Then, you complete all the visuals. (If you want to complete the visuals first, that’s totally fine, but the key here is to group the similar tasks together.)
Have separate brainstorming sessions from your content batching time. Keep track of content ideas as you think of them, and have an all-in-one place for them to live so that you can pull from this list when it’s time to batch. The most important thing here is that this time is separate from the actual creation because it uses up so much brain power that you’re going to want to have for that creation time.
This might be a hot take, but I post live instead of scheduling my Instagram posts. I like to create my content plan, just like the one I make for my Consistent Content Collab clients, and then build out my content each week. I like to post live because I like to go engage with my community regularly, anyway, so grouping these two tasks together just makes sense for me.
This one’s more of a mindset shift that we all need to work through: it’s okay if you’re not great at content when you get started. It’s going to take time and repetitions to improve your skills, so make sure you give yourself enough space to actually get it done.
Keeping up with Stories
Create a sticker of your brand colors so that you can easily incorporate your brand colors in your stories. You can do this in the Stories editor by tapping the Sticker button, then Cutouts, then create a sticker with a screenshot of your brand colors. Once that’s done, you’ll see “Your Stickers” in the Stories editor moving forward.
Once you have a sticker of your brand colors, you can update the background or text to match your brand colors. To update the background, add your sticker to the screen. Next go to “draw,” then select the dropper tool and select a color from your sticker. Then, long press the screen until the background changes to the desired color. To update the text color, add your sticker to the screen, type your text, then select the color wheel from the options. Use the dropper tool to select your ideal color. You may have to toggle the “highlight” button to get the desired color combination using your brand color.
Set a daily theme for parts of your business to talk about if it will help you stay consistent. You can start with something non business related, and then share one of these things to make sure that you are talking about your business every day. It can look something like this:
Monday: Behind the scenes of current client work (without revealing NDA protected info, of course!)
Tuesday: Something you’re learning that will help clients
Wednesday: A clear description of your offer
Thursday: Client “before and after”
Friday: A relatable struggle that your offer addresses
Create a few slides about your offers and save them to your camera roll to use when you’re busy. For bonus points, create the text on the screen then save different versions of it using different backgrounds.
Stories are a great way to let your audience get to know you. Decide what part of your life you’re comfortable sharing and then talk about it. I talk about running and coffee because they’re easy for me to blab about without revealing too much information and my audience can relate to it fairly regularly.
Connecting with your dream clients
Be a human! Always remember that there’s another person on the other side of the screen. Go connect with them and have a regular conversation. Once you start talking, they might share that they’re struggling with the exact thing that you help them with. Build that connection to make the process so much easier.
Go leave authentic comments. People post because they want to be interacted with. Go be a human and leave some fun, genuine, thoughtful comments.
Story replies are a great way to start a conversation. Again, be authentic with these, but if you see something you can relate to, go reply!
That leads me to the next point: I feel like so many of us scroll without interacting with the content that other people share. Try being more intentional with your scrolling time and use that time to connect with your audience. You’re going to be scrolling anyway, why not use that time to build others up?
Lead tracking sounds intimidating, but it’s a great way to keep track of the conversations you’re having and when to follow up with them. People are busy and you aren’t bothering them by following up with them if the conversation quiets. I have a Google Sheets template (as well as a training) within my membership to help with this.
Optimizing your bio
Make sure your audience knows what you do from the second they land on your profile. Keep your bio clear while showcasing your personality.
When’s the last time you looked at your highlights? Make sure they’re still relevant and they’re actually useful for someone who lands on your profile.
Are you using your pinned posts to their fullest potential? If this is something you’d like help with, I have a collaborative offer where you can get your pinned posts done-with-you by myself and Bridget Baker.
Check your links regularly. Are they still relevant? Do they still work? I like to remind myself at the beginning of each month to check in with these links.
Don’t use weird fonts or special characters. They can’t be read easily by screen readers. Same thing for all-caps. The screen reader would read each letter individually if it’s in all-caps, which might be okay for some things but can be really annoying if it’s the entire bio.
Looking for more support with Instagram? Here are a few ways I can help:
Consistent Content Collab: a done-with-you retainer that combines strategy and consistency with a monthly strategy-based content plan.
Strategy Double Shot: a full Instagram audit that includes audit of bio, highlights, pinned posts, overall feed content and stories, plus two weeks of email support for implementation.
Content & Community: a monthly membership to help you stop stressing over social media and stay consistent alongside your new business besties.
1:1 Clarity Call: Talk through your content roadblocks in a 60-minute clarity call. We can talk about strategy, Instagram, engagement, content planning and batching, content pillars, repurposing content, email marketing or anything else content.
