Are your Instagram posts struggling to realize traction?
With over 2 billion month-to-month lively customers, standing out on the platform requires technique and content material planning.
A content material plan is a vital blueprint that can assist you maintain your posts aligned together with your technique and your general advertising objectives.
Posting and not using a plan can simply be a wasted effort with out clear course.
To assist your model’s conversion and success, this information has a free Instagram content material plan template and useful ideas that you could customise in your model.
So, let’s attempt to seize a few of these customers.
1. Create Your Content material Calendar
A well-structured plan is your roadmap to information your path, provide help to meet your objectives, and schedule campaigns successfully.
For this objective, our template comes with an Overview tab and month-to-month planning tabs with versatile weekly layouts to present you a chicken’s-eye view of your content material.
It is going to assist you already know while you’ve met your purpose and might readjust and analyze methods to enhance your content material technique in your subsequent one.
Plus, an Instagram content material plan can maintain concepts, budgets, themes, and advertising initiatives categorized. It additionally helps you determine any content material gaps and construct consistency – a key to Instagram success.
Begin by downloading your Instagram content material plan and make a replica for your self.
Screenshot by writer, July 2025Start with the Overview tab by outlining marketing campaign cycles, together with key conversion objectives, strategic themes, and content material pillars with related budgets.
Transfer to the principle weekly sheet to refine execution. Resolve matters and submit kind, craft acceptable captions, align with marketing campaign sorts, and outline CTAs that assist your advertising funnel targets.
Lastly, after you may have the above laid out and preliminary captions, you’ll be able to transfer to the following step: Create or assign the required key visuals or belongings.
Breaking content material planning into smaller, actionable steps makes it simpler to create a content material calendar.
Bonus Tip: Sync With Current Advertising Initiatives
With a useful overview or dashboard (included in our Instagram Content material Plan), you’ll be able to map out your seasonal themes, align your matters with days you’re posting, and have your captions and hashtags prepared to simply copy and paste while you’re able to schedule your content material.
Screenshot by writer, July 2025If you have already got some advertising initiatives, it’s the proper time to include them into your advertising marketing campaign. For instance, possibly you may have a brand new product launch.
You possibly can then construct a content material sequence round it. Tease the product launch with a couple of posts, run a giveaway, function an influencer utilizing the product in a video, and spotlight key advantages all through.
Occasions and holidays supply alternatives to spice up engagement and appeal to new clients. They’re one other enjoyable and optimistic solution to get clients speaking about your model. Vacation giveaways or offers are one other solution to develop model consciousness and acquire followers.
You probably have an occasion developing, you’ll be able to create a marketing campaign hyping the occasion and discussing the audio system concerned, merchandise that might be there, or superior seize baggage you’re freely giving on the occasion.
We advocate pairing our Advertising Calendar for 2025 when creating your Instagram content material plan to tie in your inventive campaigns with holidays and seasonal themes for the week, month, and even quarter.
2. Outline Your Objectives
After getting your content material template and earlier than you propose your posts, what you need to do is create your Instagram objectives.
What do you need to accomplish? Is it to develop your viewers, drive extra engagement, or improve product sign-ups?
As soon as you already know this, you’ll be able to set the key efficiency indicators (KPIs) to mark totally different factors of research you need to observe alongside together with your Instagram marketing campaign.
For instance, you need to develop your viewers by 20% by the tip of the marketing campaign cycle, otherwise you want to improve your engagement price to not less than 0.43%.
After you choose your conversion objectives, it’s helpful to interrupt down your purpose into milestones you wish to attain.
This fashion, you’ll be able to map out the kind of content material wanted for every and monitor your progress utilizing the KPIs you’ve set above.
Screenshot from writer, July 2025Ask your self: What milestones are you able to mark to realize that purpose alongside the way in which? What kinds of content material, matters, or content material sequence are you able to create to extend engagement?
Write down all of the objectives you suppose your model can moderately obtain (Professional tip: the trick is to make it SMART).
3. Maintain Your Theme And Tone Constant
If you wish to maintain your posts participating, guarantee visible and tonal consistency by creating a model information. You’ll additionally need to keep a cohesive theme throughout all posts, together with type, typography, and shade palette.
For inspiration, you’ll be able to have a look at your web site, content material, and logos to assist create the right tone and theme in your posts.
Take into consideration the look of your content material for each footage and movies, and think about a constant angle or filter to set the suitable tone and search for your content material.
It’s additionally very important to create customary working procedures (SOPs) about your messaging, whether or not for captions, feedback, or responses to direct messages, as a result of chances are high, a number of individuals are managing the account.
The way you reply to shoppers on Instagram issues, particularly when you have a number of folks responding to feedback and messages, to make sure it’s inside the model’s tone.
4. Showcase Your Creativity: Instagram Submit Varieties (With Examples)
Instagram is extra than simply an aesthetic photo-sharing app. It’s a big platform that may showcase your product in several codecs to entertain, interact, and educate audiences.
There are numerous methods to create content material for Instagram that may spotlight your model and improve engagement.
Let’s speak by means of them for greatest practices for every use case:
Images
Footage are a good way to showcase merchandise’ USPs, share thought management quotes, relatable memes, or announce new function updates.
It’s additionally nice for posing questions that you could reply in your picture caption, or selling offers or giveaways by means of the usage of compelling captions.
- Instance: HubSpot’s AI-generated meme of its customer support rep as a toy determine catches consideration and serves as a dialog starter.
Carousels
What can your organization do when you may have a number of photographs out of your high-end photoshoot however don’t need to submit them right into a grid or oversaturate your feed? Strive fantastically crafted carousels to make sure return on funding (ROI).
Carousels have been a mainstay on Instagram since 2015. It’s a assortment of 10 photographs you’ll be able to submit abruptly, now expandable as much as 20.
To entice your viewers, make it fascinating to swipe proper with chronological storytelling, collage/journal cutout parts, textual content overlays, or a story.
- Instance: Clickup’s photograph of its new AI calendar options textual content overlay, seamlessly transitioning between each static and dynamic photographs and tutorial brief movies.
Reels
Subsequent, movies are a superb solution to present sneak peeks of one thing developing or create product teasers. You too can use movies for behind-the-scenes content material to construct product hype.
Contemplate utilizing Instagram Reels, or brief movies, to showcase merchandise, share tales, and develop your viewers.
By the way in which, Instagram discontinued IGTV, or Instagram TV, again in 2021, however you’ll be able to submit longer movies in-feed. Manufacturers use these to go extra in-depth into describing a selected subject.
Tales
In the meantime, Tales are photographs or movies that final 24 hours (until you add them to your highlights in your profile), the place you’ll be able to share posts out of your profile or submit new content material.
It’s a well-liked solution to acquire extra followers and interact with shoppers.
- Instance: Even when Tales expire after 24 hours, they nonetheless stay beneficial. Sprout Social curated its Tales into its “Trending” highlights, showcasing key occasions and social media insights, such because the Oscars, Coachella, and Artwork Basel.
Consumer Generated Content material (UGC)
Consumer-generated content material, or content material created by influencers, clients, or different customers, is a good way to increase your attain to totally different audiences and additional promote your merchandise.
Persons are extra intrigued to study a brand new product if it’s promoted by somebody they already comply with. Likewise, it might assist construct belief with shoppers new to your model in the event that they see a submit by a buyer who already loves it.
- Instance: Slack featured its No. 1 “Slacker,” Rox (a senior social media supervisor at Gozney), as a enjoyable UGC submit, the place she apparently despatched essentially the most Slack messages in a yr.
However what content material goes viral? It may be helpful to have a look at what your opponents are posting on Instagram and put your model’s distinctive twist on it.
5. Craft Compelling Captions And CTAs
Whereas it’s nice to have high-quality footage and interesting movies, the captions and name to motion nonetheless matter.
In case you hooked the patron together with your image or video, you continue to need to reel them in together with your caption and CTA.
Screenshot by writer, July 2025It’s important to craft the suitable CTA to make sure shoppers comply with your web page, interact together with your submit, or buy your product.
Contemplate A/B testing to determine the suitable method in your campaigns. A compelling call-to-action is evident, concise, and written in an lively voice.
6. Select The Appropriate Hashtags
Researching and selecting the best hashtags is essential to make sure your posts attain the supposed viewers and a few new ones that is likely to be keen on your area of interest and model.
Hashtags permit your content material to achieve customers past your profile’s following as you create content material for particular hashtags. Notice which posts carry out significantly properly.
That method, you’ll be able to create future posts for particular hashtags that may improve your content material’s visibility to a broader viewers, serving to you obtain extra model consciousness.
7. Know The Greatest Time To Submit
Planning posts forward of time will help alleviate some stress from social media technique.
You should use Meta Enterprise Suites to schedule posts for Fb and Instagram and set posts for every week or a few weeks.
In case you’re uncertain when to submit, listed here are recommended days and occasions the place evaluation factors to the place you’ll get essentially the most engagement and views.
It might be helpful to do a little analysis particular to your business to see one of the best time and day so that you can make your posts.
One necessary factor to bear in mind while you’re planning your content material is the upcoming holidays.
Are you going to submit celebrating the vacation, use the vacation to do a promotion or give away, or select to not submit on that day altogether?
It doesn’t matter what you decide, retaining holidays in thoughts is essential.
8. Measure Outcomes And Modify
Instagram Insights, each on the app and thru Meta Enterprise Suites, can present what number of views a submit will get and statistics on the engagement with the posts that can assist you see which kinds of content material are working greatest. You possibly can see your content material’s likes, shares, feedback, and saves.
Manufacturers can even use Insights to get metrics on the paid exercise. Insights are a good way to see traits as a way to alter your content material technique.
You’ll additionally be capable of see metrics about your followers to see what number of you’re receiving, the age of your followers, and knowledge on when they’re most lively on-line. This fashion, you’ll be able to alter your submit occasions to make sure you are higher at reaching your viewers.
Other than Instagram Insights, discover strategies for measuring social media impression past self-importance metrics to realize deeper perception into buyer sentiment and general model efficiency.
Wrapping Up
In case your Instagram isn’t getting outcomes, it could be as a result of an absence of planning.
Don’t miss the chance to tie your conversion objectives, advertising campaigns, traits, holidays, and artistic campaigns collectively and provides it the well-planned, in-advance finances it deserves.
It could actually solely assist, not harm, to create a proactive content material plan in your social media crew to remain aligned, keep consistency, and ship measurable outcomes.
Attaining your objectives by creating an Instagram-specific content material calendar guided by present advertising targets and data-driven themes will assist your model interact on the platform.
Obtain our Instagram content material plan and begin being simpler together with your Instagram technique.
Extra Sources:
Featured Picture: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
