How often do you feel like throwing in the towel on Instagram because you’re overwhelmed with complex strategies and posting without results? But giving up on this platform with 1 billion+ monthly active users may not be an option if you want to increase your client base. So what do you do if you don’t want Instagram marketing to feel like a chore?  

Come Up With A Simple Instagram Marketing Strategy.

If you want to make the most of Instagram, you need a well-thought-out strategy that takes into account everything from content creation and engagement to analytics tracking and optimization. Let’s talk about a simple yet effective approach that any coach can use to grow their business on Instagram.

Step 1: Start By Understanding Your Audience

Figure out who you are writing for. Identify where their needs overlap with what you’re offering. Once you have an idea of what to say, knowing your audience also tells you the appropriate tone and voice for your message.

• What problem will you/your offer solve for them? 
• What are their fears? 
• How do they like to consume their content? 
• What problems do they think they have? 
• What are the problems you know they have but they are unaware of? 
• What kind of language do they use? Do they prefer a more formal language? Do they swear a lot? 
• Do they resonate with inspirational messaging or are they more of a ‘cut to the chase’ person?

Understanding all this about your audience will help you with the next step of your Instagram marketing strategy.

But before that, don’t forget to create a spreadsheet with all the answers. Visit this spreadsheet every time you start planning your Instagram strategy for the month.

Step 2: Determine Your Content Types

Instagram offers 6 different ways to post your content and market a coaching business. They are: 

• Feed posts: They become a permanent part of your Instagram grid. You can populate your feed posts with static posts, carousel posts, and reels. Perfect for imparting value, tips, and thought leadership posts.
• Reels: Up to 60-second videos that are visible on the reels feed or your main feed if you desire. Great to get more eyes on your content and reach accounts that are not following you. A 7 to 15 second reel is ideal for conversions.
• Stories: Share content in the form of photos and 15 second videos that disappear after 24 hours. They are great for engagement and personal conversations with your audience. 
• Lives: Let people view your video, take questions from viewers and respond. All in real-time. A great place to provide value and prove your expertise. You can also give out discounts, coupons, or freebies during the video to attract new clients.
• Guides: Create a guide on Instagram by curating a collection of your posts to help educate potential clients on one particular topic and prove the value of your coaching. 
• Instagram shopping: Showcase your offers with ease, and link directly to a checkout page where customers can quickly and securely complete the transaction.

The content type you select will depend on :

• The goal of the month for your Instagram. For example, if more eyes on your business is your goal, then reels and carousel posts are the way to go. If your goal is to build personal relationships, then Instagram stories are the way to go.
• The kind of content you are comfortable with. If you don’t like being on camera, do more behind-the-scenes or off-camera video content. Or create more carousel and static posts.
• What kind of content the platform promotes. For example, currently, Instagram is placing high and equal importance on reels and carousel posts. Earlier, it was pushing reels more. In the future..who knows? That’s why Instagram analysis is important, but more on that later.
• The kind of content your audience likes to consume. If they like short videos more, use Instagram reels. If you think your audience likes to watch stories over feed posts do that.

Step 3: Determine Your Content Pillars, Topic Ideas, And Hashtags

When creating an Instagram marketing strategy, it is important to establish content pillars to guide your content creation process and ensure you are not all over the place. These pillars are 3 to 5 main categories you’d like to be known for. You create all your topics around these content pillars. 

To determine your content pillars you can ask yourself these questions: 

• What are the top 5 things you want to educate your audience on? 
• What are the top 5 things you can always talk about in relation to your expertise and offer?
• What do you want to be known for?
• What are the personal and brand values you’d like to be known for?
• You can also always add a ‘personal’ pillar to show your human side and connect with your audience on a deeper level.

For instance, at Amazing OBM, our content pillars are below. As you can see, all of these content pillars are related to our digital marketing services.

• Email and Social Media Marketing
• Websites and Landing Pages
• Launch Management
• Holistic Marketing

Based on your ‘know your audience’ information, list topic ideas for each pillar. These topics should:

• Educate your audience: How-tos, quick wins, 5 tips to, Don’t do this…do that instead.
• Entertain your audience: Behind the scenes, product reveal, offer reveal, team member introductions, brand and personal stories. 
• Promise and Promote: Showcase your expertise, be a thought leader, share client results and testimonials, talk about your offer and its benefits

The hashtags you use should:

• Describe your content
• Have words your ideal clients look for
• List your expertise

Feel free to use up to 15 hashtags to describe your posts.

Collect all this information in an easy-to-use spreadsheet. Keep adding to it when inspiration strikes.

Step 4: Master Instagram Marketing With A Simple Content Creation And Posting Strategy

You don’t need to post on Instagram everyday to see results. You also don’t need to use every content type or every content pillar if you don’t want to. Based on the time you have on hand, your audience, and how easy it is for you to create content, you can decide:

1) How often to post on Instagram? We suggest at least thrice a week to start with. 

2) What type of content to post? Select only 3 content types to start with. Ones that are easiest for you to create. To keep it simple, you can have 1 reel, 1 carousel post, and one static post per week. You can always share all these posts to your stories for more eyes. Throw in an engagement sticker or some text to make your story more personal/engaging. 

3) What content pillars to use? To avoid overwhelm, we suggest selecting one or two content pillars per month depending on what you have decided to promote for that month. Then two more content pillars the next month and so on. 

4) When to post? If you don’t have enough data on the days and times your audience is most active on Instagram, here’s a guide that’ll help.

Once you have decided what to post and when, use these tools to create and schedule your posts. 

We suggest taking time out at the beginning of each month or week and batch creating all your social media content for the month/week and scheduling it in advance. 

Don’t forget to use hooks and an effective Call To Action for each post.

Step 5: Don’t Forget Engagement

Engage for 10 minutes before you post and 10 minutes after. The experts say 20 but we say start small and stay sustainable with 10 minutes. Build up to 20 if you have the time for it or hire a social media manager. 

Make sure you respond to every comment on your post in the first 20 minutes if possible after posting it. If not, at least respond to all the comments on your previous posts before you post the next post. 

If you’re using a scheduler to save time, you just need to put a reminder in your calendar for 10 minutes before the scheduled posts so you can engage before the post goes out. 

Another thing you can do is set a timer for 5 minutes and watch the stories that pop up in your feed and engage with them. If you have an additional 5 minutes, go to the feed posts of 2 potential clients and 2 accounts with the same type of audience you have and comment on their latest post.

Try leaving a thoughtful comment instead of a like as that might lead to a meaningful conversation later.

Step 6: Analyze And Tweak Your Instagram Marketing Strategy

Numbers talk. There is no way for you to know if your social media strategy is working unless you are measuring it. Depending on your overall strategy, you will want to choose metrics to evaluate at the end of every month to know if you’re making forward progress.

Depending on your monthly goal, here are a few metrics to keep a note of:

• Times and days your audience is most active.
• Which posts did you get the most engagement and/or clicks from.
• Number of followers
• Number of likes and shares
• The type of post your audience resonates with the most
• What did your audience NOT resonate with?

Measure your social media strategy and use these metrics to help you make informed decisions about what is working and what is not. Tweak your strategy until you are seeing consistent growth and results.

Bonus: Make sure you maintain your branding on Instagram by using your brand colors, fonts, and voice. This ensures your posts stand out from the herd.

There you have it. An Instagram marketing strategy that is simple and easy to implement. Just remember…Consistency over quantity. 

If you are just starting out, start small, develop consistency, and build from there. The goal is to get your content out there and get more visible. 

Amazing OBM is a boutique digital marketing agency serving coaches and course creators.  We specialize in social media and email marketing, websites and landing pages, and launch management services.  To chat with us about implementing a social media strategy for your business, schedule a free consultation.