What an adventure it has already been we are here in module 2 and the first order of business is going to be developing your content strategy and your content creation system these essential aspects of your overall Instagram strategy are going to be designed specifically for you your audience and your goals, but before we go down that road, let me take a brief minute to explain exactly what a Content strategy is how it's different from a Content calendar.

And what a Content creation system is a Content calendar is essentially a list of post ideas or concepts that are organized chronologically either in a calendar or in a table or spreadsheet. They are specific fully formed ideas of exactly what you're going to post on a given day. Now that is in contrast to a Content strategy, which is the piece that we're going to work on in this video and your content strategy is really a framework or structure that you put in place to help. Guide your content calendar. Usually it's a repetitive structure that focuses on formats that are known to work towards your goals and suit with your audience's preferences. So essentially your content calendar. It's going to change week to week month to month.

You're going to have different specific post ideas in your content calendar that's going to change over time, of course, but your content strategy is going to be a bit more fixed. It's this structure or framework or format of your content that you're gonna hopefully have in place for at least three months at a time because it's kind of My Philosophy that you need to test out growth strategies on Instagram for at least three months before you have enough data to really know whether or not it's working. So ideally you craft a Content strategy and you implement it for at least three months before you change up that strategy, but of course your content calendar, it's gonna be changing, you know each day as you post more content one of the most essential things for growing Content creators to have in place is a solid content strategy. And of course a Content calendar, it's these two aspects that really set apart Instagram hobbyists from professional creators. So we want to take some time now in this video to focus on Crafting your content strategy. And then later on in the course, we will use this content strategy to inform your content calendar to explain this even further and kind of help you start thinking about what your content strategy might look like.

Let's return to our example of my van life account Katie and Dan in a van. So if I was thinking about creating a Content strategy for Katie and Dan in a van the very first step to developing this would be really considering what my goals are for the account maybe in this case. It is starting to build up a community of like-minded vanlifers. So considering that goal maybe I would then land on a Content strategy of one reel per week one graphic carousel per week and one photo per week plus daily story content, or maybe I've decided that I want to see even faster growth. And so I decide that the content strategy is going to be five reels a week one graphic Carousel per week and one meme post per week.

In addition to daily story content this structure or pattern of different types of posts is what I call a Content strategy. There is no one perfect content strategy for growth on Instagram. If there was I promise I would be sharing it in this video. But the reality is depending on your goals your audience. Your niche everyone is gonna have a slightly different content strategy that will be most effective for them. Whether you want to focus on growing your audience increasing your engagement or maybe converting more sales. These different goals are going to impact what kind of content strategy you put in place. I've included some more details.

On the page below of the kind of content strategies that you might adopt if you have these different goals so definitely scroll down and check that out after the video because it will give you a starting point of what your content strategy might look like depending on your current goals, but the ideal content strategy for you also goes beyond just your goals. It's really important that the content strategy that you pick also works with your lifestyle and your creative style. This is something that I really like to stress because I honestly don't see a lot of other educators in the space talking about this. It's all fine and good to create a Content strategy that is ideal for growth. But if you don't actually have the time or the motivation or the inspiration to execute on it, then you're not going to see results from it.

So for example going back to those previous strategies, if you only have an hour a week to craft your Instagram content then going with that five reels per week strategy. He is probably not going to be sustainable. And if you choose that from the outset, then you're probably just gonna end up discouraged and disappointed. The perfect content strategy is going to exist at the intersection of these three areas of your life. What works towards your goals what you like to make? And what you have time to make if your strategy leans too hard in One Direction or the other it's not going to be sustainable because either you're not going to get results from it because it doesn't work towards your goals or you won't have time for it. So you simply won't be able to make the content or if you don't like to make the content then it's gonna be really hard to find the motivation to make the time to create the content. So it's really important the content strategy that you choose has a nice balance of these three priorities. Once you have decided on your content strategy, that's when you can actually start creating your content calendar and essentially filling in the blanks of these different post formats that you've chosen with actual specific ideas.

And in module 3, we're gonna talk about how to come up with those ideas and how to create all of these different post formats and the most effective way. So make sure you stay tuned for that. But before we get to the actual creation phase it is very important that you implement a Content creation system, which is what we're going to talk about in the next video.