What you do (or don’t do) on Instagram now, will affect your business for the next 90 days. Whoa. In the middle summer vacation and back to school shopping, or whatever busy stage you find yourself in when you read this that’s a lot to take in. But it’s true.

So instead of just putting your business on pause, use these creative planning tips so that your business, especially the social media side of your business, is working for you and not the other way around.

How to NEVER run out of Instagram content

One issue that you’ve likely already ran into is running out of content to post. An easy way to prevent this is to get in the habit of taking pictures all the time when you’re out and about. Pictures of anything. Flowers, puppies, you and your kids whatever. It doesn’t mean you’re going to use it all, but it’s all ready for you to use should you need it. Your own personal stock photo library.

Plan Instagram posts ahead especially when you know you’ll be busy

There are several methods for planning posts ahead of time, I personally use Evernote which is awesome. But you could use Trello, Planoly or even just the drafts feature of Instagram to plan what posts you want to use for the future.

Write Instagram captions ahead of time

 Not only can you plan your pics ahead of time, you can write your captions ahead of time too! The more you can do to plan ahead, the easier it can be to live your life and successfully run your business. What hashtags, calls to action and emojis are you going to use? Write it down now, and use it later.

Know when to post on Instagram

Now I’d love to tell you when the magical time is that you should be posting, but that’s going to be very specific to your business. When is your ideal customer online and on Instagram? For me, it’s morning, lunch, and evening throughout the week, but not so much on the weekend. The better you know your customer, the better you will be and planning exactly when to post.