Most businesses today understand they need content and a content calendar is something that would be helpful, however taking the time to create a content calendar often gets shoved to the end of your to-do list (along with creating Reels/TikToks).

Traditional forms of marketing just don’t cut it anymore. The return on your investment is nil because your audience isn’t there. Where are they? They are on social media.

But just posting on social media isn’t enough. You need to create eye-catching, emotion-evoking, more-than-just-a-“like”-type of content.

“But I have no time.”

“But I don’t know what to post.”

If you were sailing at sea and you had a hole in the bottom of your boat, would you take the time to fix it with whatever you could? Or would you say you were too busy steering the boat, hoisting the sails, didn’t have any carpentry skills or don’t have the right-sized plug for the hole?

Of course not. You would run – not walk – down to where the hole was and then figure out what you could use to plug the hole. And if it didn’t work, you would try something else. You wouldn’t give up because you know that if you just let the water continue to come in, your boat would sink.

If you don’t make the shift to using social media and content marketing, you are leaving the hole in your boat and letting your business slowly (or quickly) sink.

So what do you do first?

First, you want to determine what you want your content to do for you. Content marketing is marketing. But not marketing to no one. Marketing to someone. Therefore, you need to know whether or not your marketing is speaking to your ideal client(s) and clearly getting your message across.

Do you want your content to build brand awareness and connect with your target audience?

Do you want your content to lead viewers to click on the offer to learn more?

Or do you want your content to compel them convert and purchase whatever you are selling?

Of course you want people to purchase what you sell, however you can’t just be pushing purchases for all your content. This is where having a sales funnel is helpful and making sure your 9-grid/3-pillar strategy incorporates the different goals will help to make sure that no matter who sees your content, if they stick around or go to your profile, they will be able to naturally be led into the sales funnel if they are your target audience.

The 9 Grid Strategy

Your 9-grid/3-pillar strategy is a content strategy related to Instagram and your home profile feed’s first 9 photos. What do they say about you: what you do, who you are, and why you are different (Unique Selling Proposition)? Are they static photos or videos? IGTV, Lives or Reels? Carousels or one photo? Quotes, framed photos or graphics? Know what you want to say and who you want to say it to will help guide you to make the right content decisions.

If you feel a bit lost on where to start with your 9-grid/3-pillar strategy or your content creation schedule in general, I’d love to help you get started on the right path. Email me for a free workbook to help you create this: hello@thebridalmasterclass.com.

I’ve created the content: now what?

“What you do after you create your content is what truly counts.” -Gary Vaynerchuk

Make sure you are using the right content for the right platforms and creating a natural sales funnel and customer experience journey along the way to guide your target audience into the behaviors you want them to have.

Think about your daily messages, your weekly messages, your 9-grid/3-pillar strategy, your overall branding, your type of content, and the sales cycle you want to lead them along. Then you want to plan out your content ahead of time.

Take the time find the photos, create the captions, determine the best hashtags, make the videos, and I would also suggest uploading and scheduling these to an Instagram scheduling software so you don’t have to worry about always being on your phone to post the right things at the right time.

Create a plan for the rest of the year (no, it’s not too late!) and upload batches at a time. You could do this weekly, monthly or quarterly. Schedule time in your calendar to do this because it is important to the health and longevity of your business.

Think about holidays, seasons, the CX journey your ideal client is on, the wedding planning schedule your ideal client is on, local or regional frustrations, etc. These can be integrated into your posts, your stories and definitely your Reels/TikToks.

Look at the times/days you get most engagement, when your ideal client is on social media, and what they are wanting to see when they go on the platform. If you are in the mood for pizza on a Friday night and someone offers you a salad, you’re not going to be interested and might even be annoyed or offended because that’s not your current mood. Content on social media is like that as well.

You will also want to make sure you go in and stop the auto-posting of any content that seems like it would be tone-deaf or the wrong timing in the event something changes in the world and posting “regular” photos would be weird and insensitive. Checking in weekly is a good practice to be in the habit of so you can regularly monitor what will be posted to your audience. Add this in your diary so it’s an appointment you can have with your social media account.

How can I get in touch?

Knowing what to do and doing are two different things.

I understand how difficult it can be to carve out the time, know what to do during the time, and then do it all while you’re being pulled in a million other directions. And you’re not alone. To help you gain more clarity and actionable steps to do what you know you need to do, I have a group of business owners like yourself that helps keep each other accountable, provides ideas and insight, and participates in group coaching with me for more decisive direction. Reach out to me if this would be helpful for you.

If you feel you need more hands-on help, you can also sign up for our in-person content days where we will go through helping you create a 9-grid strategy as well as take you through creating Reels/TikToks during a photo shoot so you have stunning and relatable content to post on your social accounts. Email me for more information: hello@thebridalmasterclass.com