What inspired me to write this post might surprise you — the truth is posting on Instagram (coming up with captions) is sooooooo hard for me and takes an immense amount of effort. I’ve wanted to start posting regularly on my instagram and growing my business for a very long time now and didn’t finally start until a couple months ago. Every time I went to post, I just found myself staring at a blank screen with a blinking cursor, struggling to come up with a silly caption for a pretty photo. I was SO worried about what other people would think. This has been such a huge struggle for me in my business, and it made me think: I’m probably not the only one out there like this, right?
Even though I am by no means a pro at this, I feel like I’ve gotten into a system that works pretty well and gets me out of the “want to post a photo but can’t because I can’t think of a caption” funk. If you’re the same way, read on for some tips for showing up regularly on Instagram.
01. Get in the Right Head Space
This is far easier said than done and is the part that took me the longest to figure out. However, it is definitely the most important. When I say “get in the right head space,” I’m talking about letting go of what other people think about you.
The fact is most people don’t even read the captions, and if they do, they skim them. The people who do take the time to read your captions are the ones who really care about you and your business and are cheering you on behind the scenes. But, like I said before, this far easier said than done, so here are my 3 tricks for doing this:
• Focus on your target audience and write to them.
We’ve all heard it before, but when you write to one specific person, it takes the pressure off of trying to please the crowd of all your instagram followers. Instead, think of your ideal client in your head (it could even be one of your followers) and write to only them. Think about the problems they may be facing? Or educate them on the aspects of your business they might not understand.
• Practice, practice, practice.
When I first started posting regularly on instagram, every time I sat down to write captions, I felt so overwhelmed. However, I knew it was something that I had to do, so I wouldn’t let myself leave the computer until that first caption was written. Now, as I’ve written more and more captions, I’ve slowly begun to find my writing voice, and it has only gotten easier and easier.
The last thing you can do to help you stop caring about what other people think also happens to be my second tip for showing up on Instagram:
02. Batch Create All Your Content
This has, by far, made the biggest impact on my instagram strategy. What I mean by this, is create all your instagram content for — no, not the week, but the entire MONTH! Yes, I plan out all my photos and write my captions a month in advance.
This sounds overwhelming and like a lot of work, but if you set aside a work day once a month to plan everything out, it ends up being quite doable. This has been a game changer for me for a couple of reasons:
TIP: I also use this time to research what hashtags are best to use.
• It has helped me to finally let go of what others think
I write the caption, and then I forget about it until my reminder goes off that it’s time to post a couple weeks later. Then, I don’t have time to obsess over the caption and worry if I’m saying the right thing. I simply hit post, and then trust that what I wrote a month ago will be just fine.
• I get in a groove.
When I sit down to write a whole month’s worth of captions, the first few can be a bit of a struggle. However, if I stick with it, I get into a groove and the words just start to flow effortlessly (and words don’t usually “flow effortlessly” for me). I sometimes get so inspired that I write blog posts after I’ve written all my captions for the month!
• It keeps me on track
This prevents me from forgetting to post when a week get a little busier than anticipated. Instead of getting caught up in the daily to-do’s, I can forget about this part of my business until the reminder pops up that it’s time to post!
• It helps me plan
Writing instagram captions out a full month in advance forces me to think about when blog posts could be published, when I can announce the reveal of my recent projects, etc. It also forces me to think about what I can do to create excitement leading up to these things such as posting sneak peeks or “behind the scenes” on my story.
So, there you have it! Once I was able to really implement this system within my own business, it has made posting regularly on instagram SO much easier. I hope this was a help to you and sparked some ideas for how you can set up your own system to help your social media presence. Thanks for reading!
