Tips for Planning Instagram Posts

 Hello Everyone!

I am here to talk about planning Instagram posts and how to stay consistent with posting each day.  This is something that I struggled with when I first started my page.

After doing some research, I was able to find out the first thing I needed to know; how often should I post.  That information stated that when you are starting out, you should try to post every day.  You could exclude the weekends, but gaining followers will take longer.  After you have grown a consistent following, you can reduce this to three or fewer days a week.  I prefer to post during the week Monday through Friday and take the weekends off.  Remember, it's healthy to take a break from social media.

After realizing how many days a week I should post, I set out to find out what tips could help me stay consistent.  At first, I was taking my pictures the same day I was posting them, this was stressful and difficult to manage.  I learned that the best thing to do is to build up a reserve of photos for posting.  For example, is there an upcoming style challenge on Instagram you will be joining?  Then plan to take your pictures a few days before the challenge actually starts.  This gives you time to work on editing and thoughtfully planning out your pictures and captions.  Since Instagram has a draft feature for posts, reels, and IGTVs, you can upload your post, get it all ready, and on the day you're ready to post all you have to do is click share.

Another helpful tip to stay consistent is to use a planner, either digital or paperback.  I prefer paperback cause I like to write things down.  It is especially helpful to plan out your posts when you have several collaborations with multiple brands at the same time.  Instead of it all being up in your head swimming around, you can get it down on paper and ensure you don't overextend yourself.

There are several apps out there that can prove useful as well.  Some of them are Preview, Planoly, StoriesEdit, Canva, and Later.  I personally use the ones I just listed.  I prefer these because many of them have a feature where you can schedule the app to automatically post your picture to Instagram for you.  Another feature I like is the ability to upload your picture to an app like Preview to see how your next post will look with the layout of your current page.  Many of these apps also have fun templates that make creating and uploading posts and stories a lot easier and quicker.  You can also save groups of hashtags in these apps so you don't have to write out your group of hashtags for every post or IG story.

These are just a few ways that have helped me to keep this hobby enjoyable and not stressful.

Thank you for supporting @inthelifeofgray by shopping my links and following me on Instagram.