3 Content Ideas You Can Steal for Instagram

By Jake Adam Davey.

Ah, the "C" word.

Over the past five years, I've had the pleasure of teaching business owners and entrepreneurs how to leverage Instagram to grow their audience and business in turn. Still, the major challenge that most people are faced with is the "C" word.

Content.

Questions such as;

• What should I post?
• What should I say to my followers?
• How can I save time and still share posts on Instagram?

Here are three simple, easy to follow tips to help you maximize your visibility and create consistency with your content - so it's easy to show up online with confidence.

Plan in advance!

As the saying goes, if you fail to plan, plan to fail! When I got started with Instagram, one of the biggest mistakes was going online without planning what I would say and, specifically, what message I wanted to get across.

Without a plan, we end up sitting, staring at the computer or phone screen, wondering what to say. Sound familiar? Now I spend about 15-20 minutes at the start of each week planning what I'm going to share across Instagram, Stories, Live and even reels for the week ahead.

Next, I set aside about an hour to record any videos I'm going to post (I batch these in advance, rather than trying to do them each day) and also schedule posts (images and captions) later, so no matter how busy I am the rest of the week, my content is prepared.

Set a specific time, and stick to it!

Between 2017 and 2018, I did over 450 LIVE videos on Instagram on consecutive days. Sounds quite impressive, but in reality, after the first few, it's really not! Why? Because it became a habit. You wouldn't congratulate someone for brushing their teeth every night before bed (unless it's your children and they're totally against it!), nor would you pat someone on the back for having a shower each morning, again it's a habit (I hope!)

Start by setting a time each day to go live or share your daily post. Personally, when I had a set time in my calendar, I could commit for over a year.

Make it all about THEM!

Ever heard the phrase WIIFM? It stands for "What's In It For Me?" This is generally the attitude most people have when they go on social media. People aren't on social media to be sold to. They go on for distraction, entertainment, escape and a moment away from work or family.

Suppose we, as entrepreneurs, business owners or personal brands - can make the information we share useful and VALUABLE for our audience. In that case, it no longer becomes about us, and instead, it's all about them! With this in mind, we can wave goodbye to the anxiety as all we're doing is serving others.

With the New Year just around the corner, I'd love to know, what's the one change you could make to your social media to make content creation and scheduling a breeze?

 Jake Davey is the UK’s leading Instagram expert. Former high school French and Spanish teacher turned online entrepreneur, Jake shows business owners and entrepreneurs how to build an authentic audience on Instagram and be seen as the go-to authority in their industry.
 
His Flagship program, InstaGalactic follows the proven, 6-Step ROCKET system and shows people how to explode their brand on Instagram so they can impact on a global scale. 
He is passionate about helping business owners to scale by leveraging the power of Instagram via his online course, 1:1 and group coaching, hosting the INfluence podcast, and international speaking engagements.
 
Jake currently has an audience of over 65K followers on Instagram, and has helped hundreds of large and small businesses to influence more people, and build authentic, engaged audiences that convert.