Are your Instagram posts struggling to achieve 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 necessary blueprint that will help you preserve your posts aligned together with your technique and your general advertising objectives.
Posting with out a plan can simply be a wasted effort with out clear course.
To help your model’s conversion and success, this information has a free Instagram content material plan template and useful suggestions 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, enable you to meet your objectives, and schedule campaigns successfully.
For this goal, our template comes with an Overview tab and month-to-month planning tabs with versatile weekly layouts to offer you a chicken’s-eye view of your content material.
It should assist you already know if you’ve met your aim and might readjust and analyze methods to enhance your content material technique in your subsequent one.
Plus, an Instagram content material plan can preserve concepts, budgets, themes, and advertising initiatives categorized. It additionally helps you establish 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 2025
Start 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 primary weekly sheet to refine execution. Resolve matters and submit sort, craft acceptable captions, align with marketing campaign varieties, and outline CTAs that help your advertising funnel aims.
Lastly, after you’ve the above laid out and preliminary captions, you’ll be able to transfer to the subsequent 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 Present Advertising and marketing 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 if you’re able to schedule your content material.
Screenshot by writer, July 2025
If you have already got some advertising initiatives, it’s the right time to include them into your advertising marketing campaign. For instance, perhaps you’ve a brand new product launch.
You’ll be able to then construct a content material collection round it. Tease the product launch with just a few 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 entice new prospects. They’re one other enjoyable and constructive solution to get prospects speaking about your model. Vacation giveaways or offers are one other solution to develop model consciousness and acquire followers.
If in case you have an occasion arising, you’ll be able to create a marketing campaign hyping the occasion and discussing the audio system concerned, merchandise that can be there, or superior seize baggage you’re gifting away on the occasion.
We advocate pairing our Advertising and marketing Calendar for 2025 when creating your Instagram content material plan to tie in your artistic campaigns with holidays and seasonal themes for the week, month, and even quarter.
2. Outline Your Targets
After you have 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 enhance 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 study you need to observe alongside together with your Instagram marketing campaign.
For instance, you need to develop your viewers by 20% by the top of the marketing campaign cycle, otherwise you want to enhance your engagement fee to a minimum of 0.43%.
After you choose your conversion objectives, it’s useful to interrupt down your aim into milestones you wish to attain.
This manner, you’ll be able to map out the kind of content material wanted for every and observe your progress utilizing the KPIs you’ve set above.
Screenshot from writer, July 2025
Ask your self: What milestones are you able to mark to realize that aim alongside the best way? What forms of content material, matters, or content material collection 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. Hold Your Theme And Tone Constant
If you wish to preserve 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 correct tone and theme in your posts.
Take into consideration the look of your content material for each footage and movies, and take into account a constant angle or filter to set the appropriate tone and search for your content material.
It’s additionally important to create normal 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 you probably have a number of individuals responding to feedback and messages, to make sure it’s inside the model’s tone.
4. Showcase Your Creativity: Instagram Put up Sorts (With Examples)
Instagram is extra than simply an aesthetic photo-sharing app. It’s a major platform that may showcase your product in numerous codecs to entertain, interact, and educate audiences.
There are numerous methods to create content material for Instagram that may spotlight your model and enhance engagement.
Let’s discuss by way of them for finest practices for every use case:
Images
Photos are an effective way to showcase merchandise’ USPs, share thought management quotes, relatable memes, or announce new function updates.
It’s additionally nice for posing questions you could reply in your picture caption, or selling offers or giveaways by way 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’ve a number of pictures 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 pictures 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 components, 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 pictures and tutorial quick movies.
Reels
Subsequent, movies are a superb solution to present sneak peeks of one thing arising or create product teasers. It’s also possible to use movies for behind-the-scenes content material to construct product hype.
Contemplate utilizing Instagram Reels, or quick movies, to showcase merchandise, share tales, and develop your viewers.
By the best way, 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 matter.
Tales
In the meantime, Tales are pictures 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 useful. Sprout Social curated its Tales into its “Trending” highlights, showcasing key occasions and social media insights, such because the Oscars, Coachella, and Artwork Basel.
Person Generated Content material (UGC)
Person-generated content material, or content material created by influencers, prospects, or different customers, is an effective way to increase your attain to totally different audiences and additional promote your merchandise.
Individuals are extra intrigued to study a brand new product if it’s promoted by somebody they already comply with. Likewise, it will possibly 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 probably the most Slack messages in a yr.
However what content material goes viral? It may be useful to take a look at what your rivals 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.
When you hooked the buyer together with your image or video, you continue to need to reel them in together with your caption and CTA.
Screenshot by writer, July 2025
It’s important to craft the appropriate CTA to make sure shoppers comply with your web page, interact together with your submit, or buy your product.
Contemplate A/B testing to establish the appropriate strategy in your campaigns. A compelling call-to-action is obvious, concise, and written in an lively voice.
6. Select The Appropriate Hashtags
Researching and choosing the proper hashtags is essential to make sure your posts attain the supposed viewers and a few new ones that is perhaps inquisitive about your area of interest and model.
Hashtags permit your content material to succeed in customers past your profile’s following as you create content material for particular hashtags. Observe which posts carry out significantly nicely.
That approach, you’ll be able to create future posts for particular hashtags that may enhance your content material’s visibility to a broader viewers, serving to you obtain extra model consciousness.
7. Know The Greatest Time To Put up
Planning posts forward of time will help alleviate some stress from social media technique.
You should utilize Meta Enterprise Suites to schedule posts for Fb and Instagram and set posts for per week or a few weeks.
When you’re uncertain when to submit, listed below are advised days and instances the place evaluation factors to the place you’ll get probably the most engagement and views.
It might be useful to perform a little research particular to your trade to see one of the best time and day so that you can make your posts.
One vital factor to remember if 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 will help you see which forms of content material are working finest. You’ll be able to see your content material’s likes, shares, feedback, and saves.
Manufacturers can even use Insights to get metrics on the paid exercise. Insights are an effective way to see developments so 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 manner, you’ll be able to alter your submit instances to make sure you are higher at reaching your viewers.
Except for Instagram Insights, discover strategies for measuring social media influence past vainness metrics to achieve deeper perception into buyer sentiment and general model efficiency.
Wrapping Up
In case your Instagram isn’t getting outcomes, it could be on account of a scarcity of planning.
Don’t miss the chance to tie your conversion objectives, advertising campaigns, developments, holidays, and inventive campaigns collectively and provides it the well-planned, in-advance finances it deserves.
It will probably 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.
Reaching your objectives by creating an Instagram-specific content material calendar guided by present advertising aims 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 Assets:
Featured Picture: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
