5 Essential Steps for Planning Your Way to a Successful Instagram Account & Profile
Introduction
Hello!
Question: Are you considering starting an Instagram account to share your knowledge and stories or grow your business?
Savvy creators, entrepreneurs, and businesses are on Instagram for a good reason!
Instagram has 1.2 billion users - roughly 1/8th of the world’s population! 63% of Instagram users opened the app every day and spent an average of 30 minutes per day.
Entrepreneurs and creators like authors, podcasters, and thought leaders can benefit from being on Instagram by:
Building brand awareness and reaching a large, engaged audience - after all Instagram has over a billion users globally
Showcasing products/services through visually appealing content that emotionally resonates with your audience and client base. This is especially important if you’re an artist or media creator. You’ll need to connect emotionally to sell your work.
Interacting with your audience and customers and receiving feedback
Driving your audience to purchase your products and services through calls-to-action and shoppable posts
Staying relevant and top-of-mind in a highly competitive marketplace.
Bookmark this post if you’re trying to figure out Instagram. This post will help you plan an effective Instagram account.
You’ll learn:
How to fill out your Instagram bio
What to include in the name field
How to plan your Instagram content
We hope this helps! Leave a comment and let us know if this post is helpful as you polish your Instagram profile.
5 steps to planning your way to a successful Instagram account:
Want to know the secret to building a great Instagram profile? Planning!
Great Instagram accounts, like great meals, rarely come together on the fly without any planning or prep. Getting your Instagram content and schedule in place will help you build an influential and persuasive account to share your books, podcasts, writing, products, or services.
Here’s an overview of the steps to building an influential Instagram account:
Set up a professional business account - Create a professional image by creating a business account and adding contact details.
Research your audience and content - Research the keywords and vibe that connect you with your ideal audience or clients.
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Prep your content using templates and stock photos - Prepare your content in advance - gather the photos, draft the content, and identify the relevant hashtags. Take advantage of stock photography, templates, and pre-written captions to prepare your content.
Draft your Instagram bio - Summarize whom you help and how and choose a nice profile photo.
Post your content using a social media scheduler- Use a social media scheduling tool to post your content efficiently. Then, schedule time in your calendar to post and engage on Instagram.
Instagram is a powerful virtual networking spot:
Instagram is worth your time because Instagram is ideal for networking!
Instagram is a virtual open-air market, your profile is your booth, and potential partners, audience members, and clients are strolling by 365/24/7. The more they like your contact, the more likely they will engage with you and eventually buy from you. That’s why Instagram is so helpful in selling books, podcasts, products, and services.
No less than a billion people peruse Instagram every day - making Instagram the world’s 4th largest social media platform. Facebook, Youtube, and What’s App. TikTok is 5th.
Running a successful business off of Instagram takes planning and consistent effort. Use this Instagram guide to polish your profile to attract and connect with your ideal audience or clients.
(1) Professionalize your Instagram account
Here are the first steps to technically uplevel your Instagram account into a professional account.
First, set up a free business account - You may have a personal Instagram account for your personal Instagram. However, you’ll want a professional account for advanced data analytics.
To do this, when you set up your account, categorize yourself as a business account or creator account. Here’s an explanation of the two types of accounts and how to switch to a business or creator account.
We suggest a business account to schedule posts and connect to third-party scheduling apps.
If you only have one account for professional and personal purposes, you can upgrade that account to a professional version for free without impacting your followers.
Next, fill out the Public Business Information (under Edit Profile) - Fill out as many details as possible so your audience can easily find and connect with you.
Choose your category - you can search all categories to determine what title best suits your work.
Contact options - Add any details you want under Contact options. At the minimum, add your public email so your audience can quickly get in touch directly from Instagram.
Action buttons - If you’re a service entrepreneur who offers coaching and support, include the ‘Book Now’ button so potential clients can book calls with you quickly. One caveat: Instagram only integrates with a few call services, with Acuity being the most popular option.
Profile Display - Enable the ‘display category label’ and ‘display contact info’ buttons so this information is visible to your audience.
Powerhouse Strategy Instagram Public Business Information
(2) Research your audience and content
You might be surprised that a lot of what goes into running an excellent Instagram account happens on your computer rather than your phone.
Research and writing are a large part of prepping your Instagram content, so you’ll want to complete the following two sections on your computer.
Once you’ve completed these prep sections, we’ll post your Instagram bio using your phone and then post your Instagram content from your computer using a social media scheduler.
This section will discuss the prep you need to explain your business and understand your audience.
Write a one-sentence summary of your work - What do you do, write, or talk about?
You’ll need a 1-2 sentence summary of your work to include in your Instagram bio. A reminder that Instagram only allows 150 characters in your Instagram bio, so we’ll have to strategically choose our words and emojis to fit within this limit.
Need help with how to describe yourself? Here’s a framework you can use to describe your work:
I….
Describe the services you sell
Describe whom you help.
Describe the immediate tangible outcome your audience or clients will get by working with you.
Describe the ultimate outcome your audience or clients will get by working with you.
Describe the emotional result your audience or clients get by working with you:
Here's my example: I build websites (services) for writers (whom I help), so they sell more books (immediate tangible outcome), make more money (ultimate outcome), and live happier and more fulfilling lives by doing the work they want to do (emotional result).
If you’re an author, writer, speaker, or podcaster use this framework:
I….
Describe what you do (I write books, articles, essays, etc.; I produce podcasts; I speak about…)
Describe what you write or speak about
Describe the conversation you want to contribute to or the emotional result your audience gets by engaging with your work:
Here's an example for authors or podcasters:
I write fiction novels (what I do) about women (my topic) that shed light on the struggles women face in the workplace (the conversation you are contributing to).
I write thriller novels (what I do) about women (my topic) that you’ll love binging! (emotional result).
I produce podcasts (what I do) about women and finances (my topic) so women feel more confident managing their money (emotional result).
List 3-10 keywords your clients or audience would use to describe (1) what you do; (2) your books, writing, podcasts, or services, and (3) who you serve:
It’s essential to have these keywords prepared to include in your Instagram bio so your audience and clients will easily find your profile when they search Instagram with these keywords.
Who is your target audience? Be as specific as possible. For example, include their gender, age, where they live, socio-economic level, etc.
It’s essential to understand your audience so you can prepare your profile in a way that connects with your audience.
Follow a few ideal clients or audience members. What brands do they follow? How would you describe their vibe?
Completing this task is essential to understand how to communicate visually with your audience. After all, targeting Wall Street business people requires a different aesthetic than targeting teenage girls, for example.
(3) Prep Instagram content (photos, captions, hashtags, and templates):
Next, we will prep your content for posting. Content means photos, captions, hashtags, and templates.
List 3-7 broad topics you would like to discuss related to your work that your audience would be interested in.
These are the topics you’ll discuss in your Instagram posts. One of these topics should be your books, articles, essays, podcasts, products, or services.
Another 1-2 topics could be personal life updates or behind-the-scenes of your own business. Remember, your audience follows you because they want to get to know you and see the day-to-day details of your life. Don’t worry about boring them.
Another 1-2 topics can be related to your work or industry - think broadly.
Can’t think of anything? Here is a blog post and video about developing your Instagram content; here is an excellent free training and podcast about creating great content.
Choose your hashtags - Go through Instagram and pick 30 hashtags relevant to your industry that attract your ideal clients and audience. Store these hashtags in a spreadsheet. You’ll need to use these same hashtags on each post so other people who are searching Instagram using those hashtags will find your profile.
Determine how often, what days, and times you will post. Posting regularly and consistently is required to grow your Instagram account. Having a posting schedule means you’re likelier to post higher-quality content regularly. It’s best to post daily; if that’s not possible post-3-4X weekly.
Pick a stock photography membership to join and select 30 images and captions for your Instagram.
Unless you’re a professional photographer, we don’t recommend attempting to take your own Instagram photos. It’s too much work, and your photos likely won’t be able to compete with all the other professional images out there.
Instead, sign up for a stock photography membership. New photos and social captions are released every month. Here are our favorite memberships:
Color Joy (best for photos of people of color)
Create a spreadsheet to plan your Instagram content for the next week or month. First, assign one topic from the list of topics above to each day; you can repeat the same topic 2x a week or post only 3-4x per week. That means that day’s content will always be related to that topic. This makes it easier to develop consistently interesting on-brand content.
Second, draft captions for each day. Use the captions from the stock photography accounts as a guide. Each cell should be a caption. Add your hashtags to a separate sheet.
Sign up for a Canva account to design graphics. Pick 5-10 templates to use for Instagram posts and stories.
Design social media posts. Based your designs on the templates from Canva, stock photography images, and captions you wrote from the social media planning sheet. Save Canva files as JPG and size small for easy uploading to Plann.
Download and gather your materials in one location - your spreadsheet with captions and hashtags and your Canva graphics.
(4) Draft your Instagram bio:
Time to start putting your bio together based on the prep work from the previous sections!
Pick a photo to use as your profile photo. The photo should reflect the vibe that your audience and clients like and your style. This can be a professional headshot or a personal photo. The photo should be a close-up of your face and, ideally, colorful so the photo stands out when people scroll quickly. If you don’t have any decent photos, don’t be afraid to grab a friend, a selfie stick, or a tripod and take a picture!
Draft your Instagram Bio by following these tips:
(1) Use emojis: Emojis make the bio more fun, easy to skim and save space since Instagram only allows 150 characters in the bio.
(2) Include your name and job in the name field: Include your name AND keywords about what you do so that your profile will appear when people search for your job.
**Tip** If your Instagram handle is your name, you can use all the characters in the name field to describe your work. You don’t need to restate your name, but you can for additional clarity. My handle is @powerhousestrategy so I clearly list my name in the name field. See below for my example.
(3) Show your category: Pick your category and click "profile display" and "display category label."
(4) Include keywords in your Instagram bio field: Include keywords about whom you serve and what you do.
Here’s another great resource for writing your Instagram bio.
Here’s my Instagram bio for reference:
Ann Koppuzha Powerhouse Strategy Instagram bio
(5) Post your Instagram content:
Finally, we’re ready to start posting your content!
Sign up for a social media tool like Plann, link your account, and schedule social media posting. Post your photos, captions, and hashtags.
Don’t attempt to post on your phone - it takes too much time, and you’re likely to get distracted. Using a business account and a social media posting tool is much more efficient.
Block time in your calendar for planning and posting Instagram content.
Also, schedule 30 minutes each day or 15 minutes 2x a day for networking on Instagram:
Respond to DMs,
Share your post as a story,
Engage with your ideal audience, clients, or other people in your field who could be referral partners - like their posts, leave a comment, send a DM, or share their content. Focus on building relationships with your audience and people who can eventually direct your audience or clients your way.
Decide if you will be planning your Instagram content weekly or monthly. Planning time to plan content is the best way to create great Instagram posts and stories efficiently.
Schedule 1- 4 hours each week or month to plan content for the week or month and repeat the planning process.
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