How You’re Going to Become Really Good at Content Creation in 2026 (Part 1)

We’re locking in and over the next 5-6 weeks you’re going to get into such a good content rhythm it becomes a habit. I’m bringing you part one of a two-part series designed to help you to become disgustingly good at social media, even during this busy holiday season! In this episode, we’ll focus on creating relatable scenarios your audience can see themselves in, whether you’re building a personal brand for product partnerships or delivering services as a pro. I’m sharing tons of real examples and scenarios, and a must try ChatGPT prompt so you can start with loads of ideas to help make content creation a habit, not a chore. 

In this episode we’ll be covering:

• Simple and effective content creation strategies for busy entrepreneurs during the holiday season
• How to paint relatable situations and scenarios that help your audience see themselves in your social media content.
• Tips for full time content creators, lifestyle brands, product-based accounts and service providers to boost brand partnerships and sales.
• Why focusing on storytelling, emotion, and lived experiences makes content stand out.
• ChatGPT prompt to help get you started with lots of tailored content ideas. 

Grab a seat at the Webinar!

Featured content in this episode:

• Trending_with_trina: Things I brought on my recent trip
• Askthedentist: Too tired to floss
• Sweatandtell: You don’t feel like cooking
• Crystal_paschall13: Niche local coffee shops
• Hauskrist: Favorite things party gifts I would steal
• Selfseekingschool: Anxiety is repressed anger
• Nail._.priere: Powder white
• Alexuscazares: 50 Healthy date ideas
• ShannonMckinstrie: You want social media to start paying you like it’s a job

Recommended episodes:

• Episode 043: We’re Getting Back to Basics and Loving Our Content
• Episode 044: Become Their Favorite Comfort Creator with Everyday Moments
• Episode 075: Here’s What I Would Post for You on Instagram This Week
• Episode 081: Your Next Powerful Piece of Content is Already on Your Phone
• Episode 086: Give Your Social Media Content a Holiday Twist
• Episode 088: Find Your Content Rhythm and Build a Simple Content Strategy

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Transcript

Shannon McKinstrie [00:00:00]:
I am your host, Shannon McKinstrie. Welcome to Good Content, the podcast where I remove the never ending content creation, guesswork and overwhelm so that you can actually enjoy being on social media again and growing your business with what has always worked. Good Content. Let's cozy up together, shall we? I am again recording from the living room. Our podcast studio is not ready quite yet, but it will definitely debut, hopefully in December. I cannot wait to share it with you, but I thought it'd be fun. For the next few episodes I'm going to do back to back.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:00:39]:
I'm record two today, so it's going to be a two part series because as you can see if you're watching on YouTube, we're starting to decorate for Christmas. It is that time of the year where it's about to be Thanksgiving. If you're here in the States, then we got Christmas, then we got New Years. I mean it's crazy town right now, right? So like no one right now wants to start a new thing. We're exhausted. We're trying to host holiday parties, we're trying to, you know, we're making plans, we're probably traveling, we're packing, we're unpacking. It's a lot. It's that time of the year where especially for someone who needs to be creating content that might fall to the wayside right now.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:01:13]:
Cause you're just like, I can't. This is the one thing that has to go. I'm gonna make it easy for you. We're gonna focus on really simple pieces of content for you to share in this two part episode and there's gonna be an epic chat GPT prompt at the end that you don't wanna miss. To help you with all of this, the next episode will be next week. And really the whole premise is how you're going to become really freaking good at social media in 2026. Like you're gonna be disgustingly good at reels, disgustingly good at content. And it's just requires you hitting posts because if you listen to this podcast, as always, I'm always giving you guys ideas, but I'm gonna give you some chat GPT prompts.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:01:48]:
I'm going to be giving you viral prompts right now that are going crazy. And I'm just gonna give you a whole plan so that five, six weeks, you now get in a rhythm and it just becomes a habit. So let me tell you a couple things to help you out. Again, almost like, and I did a reel about this a few weeks ago, about how if you want social media to pay you like it's a job, you need to treat it like a job. Does that mean clocking in for eight hours and. No, no, not at all. If it did, I wouldn't be able to do this because I have a full time job. Right? I have, it's in beyond being a content creator.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:20]:
I've got the Reels Lab, I've got audits, I've got clients, I've got a mastermind, I'm writing a book like it's crazy town over here, right? And again, my daughter, my youngest is in school only Monday through Thursday for three hours. So I get, I don't do math. 3, 6, 9... 369, millennials, what's up? So 12 hours, right? It's a lot. That also means when I'm sitting on the couch at 8, from 8 to 10, I'm typically working. I don't mind.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:44]:
I work in what I need to do. Building a business like this is work. Showing up on Instagram is work. But it doesn't have to not be fun. It can absolutely be fun. I wouldn't post as much as I did if I didn't enjoy it. So I want to help you enjoy it and I want to make you help you become disgustingly good at content creation. And again, I'm not one of those that records everything during the day.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:03:03]:
I don't do vlogs. That stuff is very time consuming. If you are a full time creator and your goal, you're listening this, you're like, but Shannon, I am, cool. Your whole thing is getting brand deals. Your social media strategy is going to look completely different than a restaurant, than a law office, than a dental place. Right? Than a service provider like me, a virtual assistant, a social media manager, things like that. Your plan is going to be different. Okay, so let me give in two parts for this one episode.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:03:28]:
We're gonna go in two parts. One is gonna be products, brand deals, content creator, right? And then the second is going to be service based. The people that are like, girl, like, right? There's the side that's more content creation leaning and then there's a side that's more like content is a tiny piece of my business. So let's talk first how you're gonna become disgustingly good at content creation as a personal brand. Someone who wants to get brand deals on TikTok or whatever, right? Or you just sell products. Okay. Your content's going to look a little different. So products, right.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:00]:
Whether you're again, a personal brand with Affiliate links, whatever it is. Create an experience. Now, how do you create an experience in the best way, scenarios, situations, et cetera, that your people find themselves in? Let me read you this viral hook, y', all, and let me tell you something real quick about the lifestyle brands and stuff that are killing it and getting like $50,000 deals, just pushing products. They all started probably just like all of us do, sharing on stories, maybe in, oh, like, oh, look at this cute lamp I found at Target. You never know, Target might see it, reach out to you and literally be like, it looks like your following's really engaging and engaged. Can. Can we do a brand deal? If you are in that side of the world that you're like, Shannon, I'm locking in. I'm locking in now.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:40]:
I'm prepping the next five weeks to go ham in 2026. Share everything. Every restaurant you're out, what you ordered, what new jewelry is in your Amazon cart. Share this stuff. That's how you get noticed. You just gotta start posting. It doesn't have to be perfect. Mm, mm.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:55]:
And again, if you're a product, like you make candles, jewelry, books, stuff like that, you got to create an experience. Not just new jewelry is out, new candle scent. That's boring. Why do we care? So let me read you this. Okay? But also, even if you're a service provider, this is really important to listen to. Or you're a realtor, dentist, a chef, things like that. And while I'm breaking this into two parts, like I said, there's two types of different people, typically, typically, again, showing up on social media right now. I'm going to overlap a couple times, but when I say scenario, let me say this one, because this is actually a reel from a dentist, but he paints the scenario.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:28]:
Okay? His says. And again, this went viral for him. Pov, you're feeling too tired to floss tonight, and you almost skip it. That's a scenario that people watching his content and the people he wants to reach. He's not saying you're a mom. You're this, right? We're getting deeper into an actual situation people find themselves in, and it's mirrored back to them. They go, yep, I do that. You almost skip it.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:49]:
But then you remember that every time you floss your teeth, you're literally preventing Alzheimer's. Talk about raising the stakes in a reel. Over 9000 likes. Even more shares. Actually about the same amount of shares as likes. Huge. Huge. In just a simple.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:02]:
And that's what I mean. It's literally five seconds of b Roll of him flossing. You guys, this is what I mean by people like dentists, realtors, home construction, interior designers, business coaches, right? You guys are with patients all day. You're with. You're on zoom calls all day. Whatever it is. You're like, Shannon, the last thing I have time for is a reel. Okay, well, this was probably done in five minutes.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:22]:
You got five minutes. Yeah, I know you do. And if you don't, we will find that five minutes. So there you go. Okay, but again, scenario. Now let me tell you for the product and brand deals people. I love this one. It says, things I bought on my recent trip that you'll use and wear on repeat.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:37]:
It's gonna be in the show notes. Over 11,000 comments. And again, why does this trigger people? This is a psychological trigger. Her on an airplane. So it already says, okay, she. Where's she going? Right. I read the text. Things I bought on my recent trip that you'll use and wear often.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:52]:
If you have a trip coming up, you're going to swipe through because you're curious. Absolutely brilliant. So again, these are scenarios. You have a trip coming up. You have a black tie wedding coming up. You're responsible for Thanksgiving appetizers. Right? So let me read you another one. Here we go.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:07]:
Pov. You don't feel like cooking, but still want a home cooked meal. 38,000 likes. You guys paint the scenario. Help them see themselves in your content. That is the secret to everyone trying to show up on Instagram right now. It's the feeling, it's the emotion, it's the identifier, it's the situation, it's the scenario. And I'm telling you right now, that's where you're going to become disgustingly good at content.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:28]:
And notice I'm not talking about get this ring light, get this tripod, Rent a crew. No. Unless you want to. Do it then. What I'm saying is it could be as simple as that. I'm gonna do a couple more for my product people and my brand deal people. This is perfect. This is a creator. And again, let me tell you this.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:47]:
This creator has a thousand followers. Her reel reach almost. It's almost at 300,000 views. You do not need 10,000 followers to get recognized, to get content out there and to go viral. Hers says, when someone suggests Starbucks run on vacation. But I've already planned out all the niche local coffee shops I want to visit. So guess what? That's taste content. That's heard content that I talk about all the time.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:12]:
And in case you missed last week's webinar, the link is down in the show notes. It was so much fun. So again, she's painting a situation where people see themselves in and what happened. And it looks like she's a personal blog, so she's growing her account right now. She's probably trying to get noticed by brands. Incredible local niche coffee shops are probably gonna be knocking on her door in her DMs in the coming months to be like, hey, if you're traveling, I see you're local. Can you come to our coffee shop? There you go. That's how it's done.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:39]:
All right, let me give you one more example for brand partnerships and products people. Perfect. This one's perfect. And all I'm doing is scrolling a few times and I find it says favorite things party gifts. I would steal if you have a favorite things party coming up in the holidays. And notice she's posted this. On what day did she post this? Six days ago. So we're talking November 18th.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:58]:
So midway through November because she knows in give your reel a couple weeks, it's gonna go crazy. And she's got over almost 2,000 shares, 10,000 comments. And guess what those comments do lead them to her Linktree, to her Amazon storefront. People buy the product she's suggesting and she gets money in her account. So again, a simple POV B roll with trending audio takes five minutes. This one's a talk to camera takes a little longer, but it's casual. It feels like you're on FaceTime with her. And other ones are just showing a recipe.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:09:27]:
So you have to decide how what type of content creator you want to be in 2026 and pick a you know, I always say I rotate between about four or five formulas. I do about one carousel a week, two to three B roll with trending audio and one talk to camera. That's my goal, to get at least five pieces of content up a week. And if I have time for more, I will do more. But that's my goal. Every week is five times a week. Many of my clients are three to four times a week because it's all they have because again, they have like full like 8 plus hour a day jobs where they clock in and can't check their phone and they have kids at home.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:10:00]:
So we focus on reels that take no more than five to ten minutes to create. Now if you're branding and you're a full time content creator and you got to do the vlogs and that's more time consuming. But just know you gotta lock in. And you'll probably spend more, closer to about two hours, maybe a day, creating content or whatever that is. I don't know. I know there's people out there that probably spend less and are like Shannon, no, it doesn't even take that long. But in the beginning, if you're just getting started, you're gonna have to test.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:10:23]:
But again, you throw it out there, you get better. Every video will get better, every carousel will get better as you get to know your audience and talk to them and listen to this podcast. Okay, so there you go. That's what I mean by scenarios. Painting those scenarios in those situations. If she said my favorite beauty gifts on Amazon. Okay, no, she said favorite things, party gifts I would steal. It puts you in the scenario.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:10:45]:
Sorry, I get so excited about this stuff. It puts you in the party. Everyone wants to bring the best gift. Everyone wants to bring the best food. So there you go. Another one. This one's brilliant for recipes. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to find it, but it's literally a recipe reel where.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:11:00]:
And I'll try to get it in the show notes, but it just says this is the meal I would make you if you just had a baby. And it's literally the video of a aluminum whatever to go tray. And she places the chicken, the rice, the whatever, the whatever, the whatever viral. She put her people in a situation. They have a friend having a baby soon they have a friend who may be having surgery. They're like done, save, share, boom. That's how you become disgustingly good at reels. You put people in a scenario, you call them out, you make them feel seen and heard and welcome in your community.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:11:30]:
So that is more so the products, right? Another product one. And I went over it in my masterclass. Just make sure to look. Watch that webinar that I did because one of them product people, it's a guy and he's doing the straps and he's like in the on screen text, it does not say ratchet straps gift, ratchet straps on Amazon, it says, watch the masterclass? In the masterclass, it says a gift dads actually want. That's it went crazy. And in the video it's just him demoing it.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:11:56]:
So if you sell a product feeling who are you giving the gift to? It's if it's candles, the gift, the niche candle sent for every girl who loves blank. Put them in the scenario, the identifiers. That's how you become their favorite Creator you because you are spe- We want to see ourselves in your content. Whether it's a tip, it's something funny, it's helpful. Heard, happy. Whatever it is, we want to see ourselves in it. Now let's go for the service providers and we'll keep this one short and sweet because I think you guys got it right.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:12:24]:
Ready? Therapists. I don't know if they're therapists or. But yeah, it looks like they're therapists. It's called self seeking School. So this is what it says. Ready? And it's. She used a brilliant audio. I'll let it play so it has that feel right.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:12:40]:
Again, you want to make sure the audios you're using match the feeling. And it's her applauding and looking at a computer. You guys, 14,000 freaking likes. These are accounts where, yeah, they're face to face with clients all day. They want the simple, simple reels. It says me when I've explained 397,000 and 116 times that anxiety is repressed anger. And my clients are shocked when feeling their anger gives them immediate relief, puts them in a situation they desire or they see themselves in. And she's clapping.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:13:09]:
This is what I mean. This is how you become disgustingly good. It's storytelling hooks. It's helping people mirror the situations and scenarios they have coming up so that they know if I don't take this advice, if I don't buy this product, if I don't hire this person, if I don't follow this account, I'm an idiot. Like, I need. The stakes are high. They need to know that, like, this is the account I've been looking for. So there you go.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:13:34]:
Also for my people, my virtual assistants, my social media managers, my branding experts, my copywriters, lawyers, again, they'll see themselves in your content if you go, here's the tasks I did for my client this week and how long they took and what I charge or whatever you want to do. It puts us in that scenario where, like, okay, I can see myself passing that off. Okay, I can see myself paying $200 for every single reel. Again, sometimes you guys, the service providers especially, don't necessarily. They don't want the tips you're sharing. They want you to do them for you. So how do you place them in a scenario? You say, just like I said, five boring admin tasks I took off my client's plate this week and what they were able to do because of it. Something like that.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:14:17]:
So again, you put me. I read that and Go. Oh, my gosh, I can't believe I'm still doing that. I need this girl to do it for me, right? Let me find one more for my service, peeps. Oh, and this is Perfect. This is 1 million views. It's someone getting a pedicure. And it says powder white.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:14:32]:
And so again, people in the nail salon, you probably don't have more than like 15, 20 minutes to do your content a day, right? So all it is is documenting you doing the content and giving it a fun name, Powder White. And then you show the experience of what it looks like so they know exactly what to order, exactly what to get. Sometimes we just need to see the visual to know what we want. And then we follow you, we hire you and look at all the saves and shares it has. Because obviously if I'm not in where they do nails, I'm gonna send it to my nail tech and say, hey, can we do this? So again, put in it's, you know, beautiful nail color, just as powder white. I could have said white toenails. Boring powder white. It gave it a fun thing, a desire.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:15:09]:
It painted their desire. So this is what I mean. This was part one of just getting digustingly good at content creation without spending all day. So for my people, just getting started in the product, you guys want to create your brand, you want to get the brand deals, Just start shouting brands out in your stories on your thing. Start sharing. Here's what I'm packing for Thanksgiving. Here's what I'm. Here's what I'm wearing as a teacher this week here, right? Add the brand, start tagging the brand.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:15:31]:
They will reach out eventually. They will see all the comments you're getting. Okay, number two for my product people demo, give the feeling. If you sell candles, light the candle, show the candle, show the person unboxing it, the jewelry, show the necklace stack you're wearing. Give us the feeling and put us in, right? What engagement ring I'd pick out for the whimsy bride for the fashionista bride, right? Like paint the scenario so they see themselves. We want to see ourselves in your content. That's how you become disgustingly good. For the next part, we're going to go deeper into this and other ways that you can become your people's favorite creator on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, wherever it is you want to shine in 2026.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:16:10]:
I got you. Oh, and lastly, let's just do this one real quick because it just popped up 50 healthy date ideas to do. Instead of just going out to eat from a couple who's been together 1,794 days. That's what we'll talk about in the next episode, is the identifiers and the keywords and the buzzwords that get people to watch more. And then the caption is fricking brilliant. It says, 47 is our favorite. So you're so curious. So we'll talk about those little tiny techniques in the next episode.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:16:35]:
But for now, what I want you to do, if you're so, like, Shannon, I'm so confused, go into ChatGPT and I want you to type this prompt. I want you to act as a professional marketer, and I want you to give me 12 + or whatever number you want unique, specific scenarios my people find themselves in right now. So again, we're talking December, because your people are gonna have different scenarios in the summer, right? And you're gonna say, and here's what I do. And you're gonna tell them exactly what you do. You're gonna give them at least three and say, and here are three testimonials. And give them three testimonials. If you don't have testimonials yet or you haven't heard I love your content yet, go look at what other people are saying in your niche, like maybe creators you look up to who have kind of given you this inspiration to start posting.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:17:17]:
Be like, here's what I aspire to be. This is what people say about their account and then say, and what are the scenarios I can help my people see themselves in? Then when you're gonna do this is so brilliant. Ready? It's my favorite thing to do lately. Go to those reels that are linked in today's episode. Show notes, screenshot the text. You don't even have to type it out. Screenshot each one, throw them in a chat GPT with it and say, and here's some viral reels. Shannon McKinstrie, you can say my name or on the Good Content podcast, it knows my 4H Method.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:17:45]:
ChatGPT at least does them pretty positive and say, these are the reels that have gone crazy. This is what I mean by scenarios. And people seeing themselves in my content, write all that out. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be around those lines. Act as a marketer. I need specific things. But again, you need to make sure you say, you tell shot what you do, why people follow you.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:18:02]:
Here's some testimonials. Here's why people love me or love my product. Now with that, here's some viral hooks where the creators have mentioned the identity, the taste, the scenarios. This is what I mean. Give me a bunch. Give me 12. Give me 20. We're going to keep track of those, and then I'll tell you what to do with them next week.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:18:19]:
I love you, friend. You got this. 2026 is going to be epic, and I love you so much.