How to Create an Instagram Content Calendar

Before you begin creating your content calendar for Instagram, you need to make sure you have a clear understanding of your current social presence. 

Undertaking an audit of your social media channels allows you to build a picture of how you are currently performing, what’s working, and what isn’t. Knowing what you can improve on and what works well for your audience will ensure your Instagram content calendar is a success. 

When undertaking your audit ask yourself the following questions:

• Which social media platforms are you on?
• Which social media platforms aren’t you on? 
• Which of your social media accounts have the largest and most engaged following?
• What type of content has performed well for you in the past?
• What type of content hasn’t performed well for you in the past?
• Who is engaging with your content?
• Who is your key target audience demographic?
• Does your current social media audience match your target demographic?
• Are there any gaps to be filled in your social media presence?

Maintaining a consistent tone of voice and style across Instagram is important to building your brand.

The best business Instagram accounts have honed their brand so that the tone of voice and visuals reflect their values and mission. 

The goal is for users to instantly recognize your brand from an Instagram post without having to check the handle and username to confirm it’s come from you. 

In order to ensure you have a confident tone of voice and style across your Instagram account (and that this matches with the rest of your online channels) we recommend creating a set of brand guidelines. 

Brand guidelines are exactly what they sound like – guidelines for the creation of your brand that cover everything from the tone of voice you should use in content and captions to the colors and themes of your images and videos.

If you’re unsure what style you want your Instagram posts to take, research some of your favorite accounts and take a look at what your competitors are doing. From this, you can create a mood board to refer back to when shooting your content.

An important part of the creation of your Instagram content calendar is establishing who is going to be responsible for populating and implementing it. 

It’s all well and good having a content calendar to follow but if nobody on your team knows whose responsibility it is to put it into action then you’re wasting your time.

Roles and responsibilities to establish include:

• Who will populate the calendar with new, upcoming content?
• Who will create the content (e.g. photos, videos, captions)?
• Who will proof and sign off on the content?
• Who will schedule and/or post the content?
• Who will ensure the calendar is being correctly followed?

Before you create your Instagram content calendar you need to establish your wider Instagram strategy. 

Your Instagram strategy should be researched and well thought out to ensure it meets the main KPIs (key performance indicators) and goals you have for the platform. 

The Instagram strategy you create will then underpin your weekly Instagram content calendar.

When creating your social media strategy for Instagram you should think about:

• What is the purpose of the Instagram account?
• How often do you want to post to Instagram?
• Are you going to follow a content theme?
• What time of day is your audience most active and engaged on Instagram?
• What type of content will you post? Do you want your content to be educational, entertaining, or sales-driven? The best accounts use a mix of both!

Now that you’ve completed all of your research, planning, and prep it’s time to create your Instagram content calendar.

There are various platforms you can use to create your calendar – some people opt to use an Excel spreadsheet, or you can sign-up for specialist tools such as Loomly or Sprout Social. 

When creating your Instagram content calendar you need to make sure that it includes:

• Publish date
• Content type
• Content theme
• Assets (images or videos)
• Captions
• Additional information such as hashtags or accounts to tag
• Who is responsible for each aspect

Remember to make sure that every member of your team involved with creating and implementing the calendar has access to it and receives all of the relevant updates and information.