My favorite ways to save time on Instagram content

If there’s one thing that I love doing most, it’s helping you save time. In today’s blog post, I want to show you all the ways that I save time on Instagram through my content creation, engagement and other methods.

I’m utilizing my time the best that I can, and also getting the most impact that I can from the platform.

You can skip the read and watch the video here:

Reusing existing content by repurposing it

If you’re like me and you’ve been in business for a while and you’ve been on social media creating content for your audience and you’re looking for ways to save time, the best thing you can do is go through your older content and look for things that performed really well for you.

Whether that’s captions, older videos, or graphics you’ve created, you can utilize and reuse older content to come up with new content.

This is truly the best way to save a ton of time on Instagram. If you’ve been in business as long as I have, which is going all the way back to late 2015, you’ve got a lot of content that still resonates, works and makes sense to reuse or revamp for your Instagram content or for your business.

A lot of times it’s underutilized but one of the best ways to save time is to reuse content that you’ve already created.

Take guess work out of content by utilizing insights on past content

Another thing that’s going to help you save time is to stop guessing what type of content you need to create for your audience and instead utilize your insights and the data that you have at your fingertips to figure out what content is really performing well for you.

If people want to hear more about a specific topic from you, it’s going to save you a ton of time if you continue to dive deeper into that topic for your audience.

It’s going to grow your account further and it’s going to resonate with more people. Instagram’s going to recognize you as a top creator on that topic.

When people are engaging with other content similar to that, Instagram is going to help you by showing your content to those people. It’s going to save you time because it’s going to simplify your content creation process because now you have less things to consider when creating content.

It’s also going to save you a headache and heartache if you’re not getting a lot of engagement because you took a left turn away from the content that your audience is really loving from you.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t create content that is valuable to the ideal client that you have. You definitely should create more of that content.

Let’s say you created content one day that was funny, but it was a little off brand. Maybe it doesn’t actually attract the right ideal client for you or the right audience. Don’t create more of that content if it’s not going to serve your purpose.

But if you found something on your account that resonates really well and generates clients, dive deeper into that. It’s going to save you a lot of time.

Batch creating content using templates

The next thing that’s going to help you save time with your content creation process is batch creating your content and using templates.

There is no reason to reinvent the wheel every time you go to post content on your social media. It makes your brand more recognizable if you use the same or similar templates that you’ve already used in the past.

That’s not to say you should use the same templates every single day. However, it can save you a ton of time if you have one template that helps you share quotes or client testimonials. Just reuse that same template every time you want to create testimonials. One of the biggest mistakes that I see is that people use one template once and not ever again.

It’s going to save you time and not everybody’s going to see that content so if you think you’re being boring, that’s not actually true because only 10 percent or less of your audience is actually going to see that content.

Instead of creating just one item using that template, why not use that template to create five and then share those five graphics over the course of a month?

Now you’re starting to batch create content for a longer period of time.

Batching similar tasks together

Another thing that’s going to help you save time in your content creation process is batching similar tasks together including your research.

If you are thinking about creating Instagram reels but you need to find trending music, you need to plan what your reel is going to be about or you need to create the cover templates for your Instagram reels, it’s better to batch those things in one sitting than it is to do an entire reel in one sitting.

If you’re going to come up with more content ideas, batch that process in one sitting instead of stopping and starting. It’s way better to batch those similar tasks together and get a lot more done than it is to piece it together.

If you’re inside of our membership community and you receive our templates every month, you don’t have to use all the templates. You can pick a handful of templates and create multiple posts for each of those templates.

If you have five templates and you create five posts for each you now have 25 different pieces of content that you can spread out across a month that utilizes batching and templates. It simplifies your content creation process.

Scheduling engagement during specific times

Another thing that’s going to save you time on platforms like Instagram is utilizing an engagement schedule.

That means instead of just picking up your phone and scrolling Instagram when you feel like it, instead you’re scheduling specific times during the day to engage on Instagram. This will prevent you from aimlessly scrolling and instead utilizing a specific time for the goal that you have, which is engaging with your audience.

When you put it on your calendar and you schedule that time, you’re going to be more productive and you’re going to actually see the results that you want.

I don’t know if you’re like me or not, but I used to have a habit of picking up my phone and randomly scroll through Instagram without a purpose. But really, that’s not serving my purpose and it’s not helping me be productive and save time.

What I’ve had to do instead is start scheduling time on my calendar for 20 minutes to engage in the morning, 20 minutes to engage in the afternoon, and a specific day during the week where I actually sit down and do research.

Being mindful of when you’re on the platform

One way you’re going to save time on Instagram is by being mindful of when you’re actually on the platform. I know that for me I used to pick up my phone for a little dopamine hit because it would feel good to see likes or comments on my post or see that someone shared something or just to scroll my feed.

I was just absentmindedly going to my phone, and I was checking it every five or 10 minutes so, of course, if I’m doing it randomly at random times, I’m going to get random results and then question whether or not it’s even a good use of my time to be on Instagram.

What I’ve learned through that process is that it’s better to schedule the times that I’m on the platform and block myself from viewing the platform outside of those times. I use an app blocker for that.

It helps me be more mindful and to go on the platform for a purpose like engaging, content creation and all the things that are going to actually help my business.

Put it on your calendar what time of day you’re going to actually sit down and post and schedule and then outside of that time, remove your ability to even be on the platform. If you do need to, you can use an app blocker.

Scheduling your content ahead of time

Lastly, and probably most importantly, the one thing that’s going to help you save time on Instagram the most is scheduling your content ahead of time, whether that’s three days ahead of time or a week ahead of time.

It can save you up to two or three hours if you just sit down and schedule a couple of days of content in one sitting. If you’re trying to create content the day that you’re posting it that takes time. It also takes time to get into the mode of content creation.

If you’re going to take the time to get into that flow, the creative space that it takes to create content, then you might as well get fully into the flow and block off an hour or two just for content creation. Schedule that content ahead of time so that you are doing a group of tasks together while you’re in that flow instead of stopping and starting on different days to do smaller tasks.

You’re going to save a ton of time if you approach it this way.

I’ve already talked about batching, but you’re going to save a ton of time if you schedule that content as well, because the next time you go to engage on Instagram, you’re not fumbling around trying to write your captions. You’re not wasting time trying to get back into that flow.

Now that you know more, I have one last tip for you, and that is that you can get your hands on free Canva templates and exclusive stock photos plus more strategies exclusive to the Ivory Mix community. There’s up to five hundred resources here for you.

Let me know what your favorite part was and share this post with your fellow content creators. If you do share it to Instagram stories, be sure to tag me so that I see it, because I may just feature you in my Instagram stories.

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