How I'm Getting Myself Out of a Content Rut on Instagram ASAP
How I’m getting myself out of a content rut on Instagram ASAP
Just because I’ve been doing this for a decade doesn’t mean I don’t get stuck in a rut with my content…
I feel like I'm in a content rut, and I feel like a lot of people are also in content ruts. So I thought we’d talk about it today. In this completely unplanned episode, I’m sharing why I feel like I’m in a rut and exactly what I’m doing to get out of it, including the business goals I’m focusing on for Autumn and the content styles I’m testing out.
If you're feeling uninspired, if you've taken a break for too long and you wanna come back, if you're overthinking your posts or sick of not seeing results, then by the end of this episode you'll feel so much better about things.
Links mentioned in this episode
Done for you content with a twist (the twist being you) that’ll help you build (or rebuild) the consistent posting habit you need to start growing your business and making those steady sales.
Not seeing results from your content? After a comprehensive public facing audit, you’ll walk away with a detailed report telling you what’s working, what isn’t and the actionable steps you need to take to actually see results.
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I feel like I'm in a content rut, and I feel like a lot of people are also in content ruts. So I thought we would talk about it today, and we would discuss how I'm getting myself out of a content rut, what I'm doing, why I feel like I'm in it. So if you are feeling the same, if you're feeling uninspired, if you're feeling like you've taken a break for too long and you wanna come back, if you're overthinking your posts or sick of not seeing results, then hopefully by the end of this episode you'll feel so much better about things.
Am I in a content rut? I don't really know. I took a bit of a break from content over the summer. By content in this episode, I'm very much specifically talking about social media content, my Instagram feed. Obviously, I launched the podcast in August and have been relatively consistent. We are gonna ignore the fact that I missed a week. But I've been consistent with the podcast. I've been enjoying creating this format of content. And after taken a considerable amount of time away from my Instagram, I'm coming back.
And I've got a really in-depth strategic plan that I've taken a long time to create, to be honest. Like, it- I've spent a good few days and a good few weeks going through my goals, my capacity, what I want to achieve over the next few months, and I've actually got my content planned up until mid-December, plus so many other ideas to go alongside that. So I'm probably gonna actually create the plan until January maybe.
But the problem that I'm having is not coming up with the content ideas, it's that feeling like things aren't working. And you know this, you, I'm sure, have experienced this, where you feel like you're putting all your energy into your content, you're putting in loads of effort, but it doesn't seem to be doing anything. And as I've said so many different times, your content is working for you.
When you are intentional about it, every single post is having a compounding effect. So even though you might not be getting many likes, it's still doing its job. As long as you've assigned a purpose to everything you post, it is still doing a job for you, it is still working for you. But sometimes when we're not seeing the instant validation, when we're not seeing the instant engagement, it can feel like nothing's working, and that's kind of how I've felt a little bit since coming back to my grid.
Now, I've been in marketing for long enough now, like nearly a decade. I've been around long enough to know that when you disappear from your socials, when you take a break and then you come back, it can take some time to rebuild that momentum. It is annoying but that's just how it is. And I also know that different things land at different times. People see things at different times. Depending on when you post, that can have an impact.
So a few things that I've done since coming back to my Instagram grid, I've changed my post times. I used to post, I think, I used to schedule my posts for 7:00 in the morning, so I would wake up and I would have posts, and they would typically have a couple of likes here or there. And when I was checking my analytics the other day, I went in to look at my analytics to see when my people were most likely online, and according to the stats, between 6:00 and 9:00 PM is the busiest time for my people who are following me. So I shifted my posting schedule. I started, when I first came back, I started posting in the morning again, and then this week I've shifted it to the evening, and all of a sudden my engagement's dropped.
However I've also been trialling different styles of content. So things like lip syncing, things like recorded video from a talk that I did a few months ago. I've done some B-roll with some quotes over the top. Typically for me, with my other accounts, the B-roll and text has worked significantly better than anything else for me. However, with the Robin Rose Creative account, it seems to be one of the worst performing types of posts, and I'm not stressing myself out about it. I've very much decided that to get myself out of this content rut, I am just going to say at least the next month, but probably the next six to eight weeks as an experiment. I am going to stick to my plan.
I'm going to post the different types of content. I've got some lip syncing reels coming up, which I feel really excited about 'cause that's the kind of content that I used to really enjoy creating before, but I've never done it for this account. And I posted my first one the other day, and again, had absolutely shocking engagement, shocking views. But I'm just seeing this period of time, so the autumn, as a complete experiment.
So I'm gonna post a variety of things. I'm not gonna stress over individual posts. I'm not gonna worry that a certain post style isn't working. I'm gonna continue to post those things. I'm gonna stick to my plan, and then when it comes to December, January time, I'm gonna have a look at my strategy. I'm gonna look back over the analytics, look back over the things that I've posted and see what is working well, what isn't working well, and then double down on those things. Because, as I said, I've t- I took a couple of months away from my Instagram, so after posting consistently for, like, six months, I took a break, and because I took that break, I now feel like I don't really know what's working best. I'm in a different season. The business has evolved. My ideas have evolved. My content plan has evolved. Everything has changed, so I don't have any definitive, like, "This is working for me right now. This isn't working for me."
Everything is going to be a test, and because I've told myself that this is an experimental period I feel really excited about it. So I feel excited and I have that curiosity. So when things don't work, instead of going, "Oh, my content isn't working. What have I done wrong? Why isn't this... Like, this used to work for me, now I've got it wrong again," or, "My content is failing," or anything negative like that, I'm looking at it with this curiosity lens of, ooh, I wonder why that is. I wonder if it was the hook. I wonder if it was the audio. I wonder if it's the visuals. I wonder what I can pinpoint to be the issue.
And also, I'm not just focusing on the, like, stats because if you look at some of my pieces of content, I was going through my analytics the other day, my analytics for the last year, although my account hasn't actually been live for a year, I think it's only been live for about 10 months, but I looked at them for the last year, and the post of mine that has got the most website clicks and the most profile visits was a post that only had two likes on it. It had two likes, and it had five website clicks. So five people had read the post, which was specifically about my capacity for The Robin Intensive, and because they'd read that post, that was ... It was a value, like a value carousel, as I like to refer to them, but it was also very much a sales carousel, 'cause I was saying, "This is my capacity for the next few months." Five people had gone and clicked into my bio and clicked the link to find out more about the service. That to me, is so much more important than the fact that the post only had two likes.
So this is what I'm really gonna be focusing on tracking over the next few months as well, is, okay, what posts are getting the clicks to my W- what posts are getting the profile visits? What posts are getting the website clicks? What posts are converting into followers? That's also something that I'm gonna be focusing on. I really wanna grow the account. I've not focused a lot on follower growth. I've focused more on nurturing, more on brand awareness, more on almost just getting the word out about my company, but not from a trying to gain followers perspective. I've wanted to play around with the account a bit first. But follower growth is something that I do wanna focus on for the next few months, and I've got a couple of little strategies within my content plan to do that.
So I'm gonna be trialing out those things as well to see what's gonna bring me in the followers. Because as I said, what I thought was gonna bring me in followers is, like, the B-roll with text kind of, um, videos. That's historically brought me a lot of followers before with my Your Confident 30s account. It brought me thousands of followers very, very quickly. I don't want that for Robin Rose Creative, because I'm much more focused on building the know, like, and trust, and turning my followers into actual clients that want to work with me. So I'm not fussed about having thousands of followers overnight. I don't really want that. I want the sales, not the followers, okay? But now I do really want to grow the account. Now I feel like I'm ... I want to experiment with what kind of content is gonna increase my following, but in a way where I'm attracting people who are considering buying from me or considering me as a solution in the future, or maybe are learning something from me who would maybe recommend me to their friend.
So as I said, to get me out of my content rut, I am using the next eight weeks as a complete experiment, and some of the styles that I am going to be experimenting with, because I feel like variety is key here. I am very much in a wanna throw out all the things and see what lands versus just focusing on one specific thing. So I'm gonna try out using the clips from the talk that I did. This is more so because I wanna get back to posting five times a week, and I've already got 20 videos, like 20 mini clips out of the long form video of the talk that I gave, and it seems like such a waste to not use those 20 clips. Plus, that's like 20 posts that I can use across, say, 20 weeks. So for the next five months, that's at least one of my posts a week, which makes being consistent with my content a hell of a lot easier for me.
So that's one of the styles of posts I'm gonna use. The B-roll with text, again, experimenting with that, experimenting with hooks, because I think maybe my hooks could be a lot more specific. So experimenting with hooks, experimenting with different types of B-roll. Going back to that kind of fa- that ... Going back to that style and seeing how I can make it work for Robin Rose Creative. I'm gonna be sharing clips of the podcast, which I haven't done yet. I've recorded almost behind-the-scenes type style content for the podcast. I didn't wanna sit down and record a face to camera video for the pod, not at this point in time anyway. So I've recorded the behind the scenes, so I'm gonna cut out clips, share those on my socials to see if that impacts the traffic coming to the podcast.
I am gonna be sharing lip syncing reels because I really enjoy creating them. I think they're funny. I think it allows me to bring a bit of my personality to my feed, makes things a bit more fun. It stops feeling like ... What I really don't wanna do with my account is make it preachy or make it where it's just educational. Like, I want people to know me and to like me, and connection content, I think, can work really well when you use the lip syncing reels. So I'm gonna try some of those out.
I'm also gonna bring quotes into my feed. I love reading quotes. I think they're really valuable. I think from a creation perspective, they're a very easy to create style of content. So I'm gonna do a mixture of taking quotes from my podcast because I've got all the transcripts, and then just creating quotes, and then just creating quotes that are shareable. This is one of my follower strategies, is to really focus on quotes that resonate with my person that makes them want to share it. So the more shares, the more of a larger audience I can reach. But again, they're gonna be super specific because I don't just wanna put out general quotes and attract general followers. I'm very clear on who my ideal client is and who I want to bring into my audience. So I'm gonna focus on those.
And also, the real in-depth high-value carousels. I love creating carousels, and I know for a long time the short carousels with, like, one sentence per slide on, I know they've worked well for a lot of people. They've worked well for me when it comes to building connection and when it comes to more personality content. But I see so much value, and I know people get so much value when I share the real in-depth high-quality carousels, and they do take me a considerable amount of time to create. So there's not necessarily gonna be one every single week, but ones where I can use storytelling to help people get to know me, where I can share my strategic thinking, where I can share tips and advice that people can implement themselves. I know that they are really valuable, and they get me a lot of saves, which again tells me my content is doing well and it's resonating with people because they're saving it and they're gonna come back to it later.
I'm also gonna throw in a few static posts, so just images with a more personal caption. These seem to work the best for me. I find that my posts with the most engagement are the static posts, which goes against everything all the gurus tell you . All the advice I ever hear about Instagram is that carousels or reels are the things that grow your account the most or that get the most engagement. I have found for my account personally, the posts that get the most engagement are the static posts, so just an image and a caption.
And this is why it's so important for you to understand your profile as well, because y- your profile won't perform in the same way that mine does. It won't perform in the same way that an Instagram expert's does. Every single person's business profile performs differently, and you have to test these things out for yourself. It's like for years I was very much a share one story, written text gets the most engagement. I was an advocate for that. I would tell everyone, "Let your stories go quiet for 24 hours, then just come back with a single image with some text written on it. That's gonna get you the most views."
Fast-forward to me opening up the Robin Rose Creative Instagram account, single stories with text are not what get me the most views or the most engagement. You know what gets me the most views and the most engagement? When I yap to camera on my stories, which goes against what I was telling people for ages. And now all of a sudden I'm like, "Wait, hang on. My account now is completely different." So when I'm going back to the lip-syncing styles, when I'm going back to the B-roll and text that I've used on my personal account, that I used to grow my business account for nearly a decade, that I used for the Your Confident Thirties account, those posts that worked on those accounts aren't working on Robin Rose Creative.
So it is really important if you are in this space and you feel like nothing is working, experiment with loads of different styles. Experiment with different content types, experiment with different hooks and with different captions. Experiment with all the different things because then you will find what works for you. Will it work for you forever? Probably not. There'll be a change at some stage, but you're not gonna know how best to grow your account, you're not gonna know what gets the most clicks to your website, you're not gonna know what gets you the most followers until you've tried out a real broad spectrum of content types.
So that's what I'm doing. They're just an insight into some of the content styles that I'm trying, some of the things that I'm doing to get myself out of a content rut, and to really focus on my business goals. My business goals are to increase my followers, grow my account, and I also wanna book out my services for October, November, December, and into January. Like, I'm quite keen to book out my Robin Intensives for January.
I am considering putting together a more long-term offer for 2027 that will involve content planning on a monthly basis, co-working sessions to help you create your content, and more of strategy calls. But that's gonna be almost like ... I don't wanna say a content mastermind, although that it will kind of have those vibes, but it will, will almost be a mixture because I'll do the done-for-you content plans, but then also there'll be that additional support of me to hold you accountable, to help you create the content, and to really ensure you're seeing the results throughout 2027. That is something that's playing in my mind at the moment. If that does sound exciting for you, then do send me a message on Instagram @robinrose.creative because it will be a very limited number of people. I, I'm thinking like maximum of four people because I want it to be a really intimate group.
Obviously, if I'm creating content plans for people on a monthly basis, there are only so many of those I can do every month. My capacity is really important to me and I don't wanna overstretch myself because if I overstretch myself, it's gonna impact my clients, and my client satisfaction is the most important thing to me. So that's something I'm considering. And because of that, in November, December, my content would be geared towards that if I decide to do it. I- In my head it's a really great idea, but I need to just map out a few things first.
So yeah, that's my, my, my kind of business goals, to sell The Robin Intensive, possibly sell the 2027 year-long thing, and also maybe sell a couple of content audits because I've done a couple of those this month, and they were so good. So, so, so good. A lot of eye-opening things, but I think I might talk to you about that another day.
So yeah, I hope that somewhere in this you are now feeling inspired, you are feeling like you're not in a rut, you're feeling less irritated if your content isn't doing how you want it to do. Go and experiment. Use the next ...the next couple of months to really experiment, try out some new things, get into the habit of feeling a little bit uncomfortable with your content maybe. I don't believe you have to force yourself out of your comfort zone, but also during this trial phase it can be a good, a good chance for you to feel a little bit uncomfortable to try out some new things so that when it comes to 2027, oh my God, how are we nearly there, you have more of an idea of what's working for you, what works well for your account so that you can go into the year feeling strong and confident in your content plan.
If you are not planning your content, I would highly, highly, highly encourage you to plan. I wasn't consistent for about eight weeks because I stopped following my content plan because my content plan failed because it was focused on the podcast that ended up launching late. Now I've got my content plan back, I am being so consistent. And yes, it's only been a couple of weeks, but I'm really confident about the plan that I've got in place and about being able to stick to this plan because it's based on my capacity and because it's also filled with, um, a lot of exciting diff- a lot of exciting things, which makes me feel excited to implement it, which is super, super important. So yeah, if you're not planning your content, please try it out. Plan your content.
If you don't know how to plan your content, you struggle to plan your content, or you just don't want to, then The Robin Intensive is there for you. I'll create your content plan, tell you when to post, what to post, why you're posting it. I'll give you your hook, I'll give you a CTA, and then all you have to do is fill in that little bit in the middle. So that's create your carousel, write your caption, record your video, whatever it is, and then you can post it. But I will do the majority of it for you to make your life so much easier. Thank you so much for listening. If you've got any questions, comments, find me on Instagram at @robinrose.creative. And if you have enjoyed this, then please do rate and review the show. Thank you so much for listening, and I will see you in the next one.
The Art of Confident Content is planned, edited and produced by Rebecca at Robin Rose Creative. If you've been thinking about launching your own podcast and want support bringing it to life, email hello@robinrosecreative.com. I would love to hear about your idea and discuss how I can help you with the concept, episode ideation, and launch content.
And when you're finished leaving me a five-star review, don't forget to check out The Robin Intensive. This is done for you content with a twist that will help you post consistently for the next 90 days at least. The link is in the show notes.
Oh, and one last thing. If you made it here, DM me the word gift, that's G-I-F-T, on Instagram because I've got a little something special just for you.
The Art of Confident Content is planned, edited and produced by Rebecca at Robin Rose Creative (that’s me in the pic!). If you've been thinking about launching your own podcast and want support bringing it to life, get in touch here. I'd love to hear about your idea and discuss how I can help you with the concept, episode ideation and launch content.
You’ll find previous podcasts planned, edited and produced by Rebecca here:
