Here’s What Good Content Will Look Like in 2026

I absolutely cannot wait for 2026 and in this episode I’m sharing my predictions for social media trends that we’ll see next year and beyond. We’re talking about simple POV hooks that are personal and relatable, content inspiration that’s literally right outside your window, and the core reason for all social media. We’ll do a reel breakdown discussing key elements and why they work, revisiting the REP hook formula, and making sure your content is always specific to your audience. 

In this episode we’ll be covering:

• Finding content inspiration through relevant and current events to create content that is personal, relatable, and actually connects.
• The core reason for all social media, because genuine content that connects and resonates keeps us coming back for more.
• A content breakdown of what’s really working right now, we’ll review different key elements and why they work.
• How to weave relatable words, proof of expertise, and personal touches into content that resonates with your audience.
• The ultimate reel hack that keeps people coming back.

Featured content in this episode:

• Becomingdrdevore: Whole Foods
• Shannonmckinstrie: 7 Simple things to start doing
• Holistichealingla: Trader Joe’s

Recommended episodes:

• Episode 043: We’re Getting Back to Basics and Loving Our Content
• Episode 063: Was That an Ad? Even the Big Brands are Making it Personal
• Episode 083: Use the REP Hook Formula and Start Filling in the Missing Pieces
• Episode 085: Start Thinking Like a Marketer So People See Themselves in Your Content
• Episode 086: Give Your Social Media Content a Holiday Twist
• Episode 089: How You’re Going to Become Really Good at Content Creation in 2026 (Part 1)
• Episode 090: How You’re Going to Become Really Good at Content Creation in 2026 (Part 2)

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Transcript

Shannon McKinstrie [00:00:05]:
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.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:00:23]:
Hello. It is a snow day here in Raleigh, which means there's absolutely no snow outside. But we have a house full, My daughter and her friends ate a sleepover last night to celebrate. It's supposed to snow later. We shall see. But it's a great reminder that sometimes, and I really like, I like to say this a lot to my clients, is like when you're stuck on what to post, literally look out the window and think about what is relevant right now, right? So if you even just look out your window, what's the vibe? There's Christmas lights right now.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:00:52]:
It's about to snow, right? It's freezing, it's winter. Anytime you can try to get your content to reflect what's relevant right now in your audience's mind. What's relevant right now for most people, time to buy gifts, right? So if you sell products, your content should be about how your product makes a great gift. If you sell something that makes your home feel warm and cozy, your content should be about that because that's what we want right now. Look, I'm sitting on the couch with a blanket and everything in our house right now is just like warm vibes. We have the fireplace going, right? So I just want to say that as like a quick little thing whenever. Cuz everyone's always like this strategy, that strategy. I was, I'm like, honestly, sometimes the best strategy is just what's relevant right now.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:01:33]:
And think about it what was social media since day one? It was sharing what we're doing in our lives. and it's, That's still going to continue in 2026, so that's what this episode I really want to talk about, my personal predictions for 2026, because it's what I've been saying pretty much all year and its only going to get more and more going in this direction of relevance. Right? Big time. Talking about things going on right now in the world, on tv, in pop culture, the weather, right? Like we want to relate and when something is relevant and timely what's more relatable than that? We're going to share it right.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:01:34]:
So my biggest prediction for 2026 is we're going to keep going back to what social media has always been, which is Connection. And I actually shared a Reel this morning too. Because it's like exactly where social media has been heading the past year plus and going to continue to be even more so.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:25]:
Okay, ready? This is like insane. This is literally what I've been talking about on this podcast since the day it started and what I've been stressing in the Reels Lab and tell my clients, ready? And yes, it will be in the show notes. So it literally says now. And this is what I mean by relevance. Listen to the audio. Listen to the audio.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:45]:
All right, so while this video has nothing to do with Christmas or winter or whatever, that's the season. She knows, this creator knows. That's. That's where we're at right now. Again, look out the window. It's Christmas. Everything. It's winter.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:58]:
Or at least it's winter here in the States. It says now, let me tell you this. 65,000 likes, 14,000 shares, almost 15 actually. And 3.4 million views. Are you ready for it? It says, POV, you're a busy fourth year med student who tried the $35 Whole Foods family meal, and now you have dinners for the whole week. That's it. Let me count how many clips. One, two, three, four.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:03:28]:
That's it. So four clips, all about one and a half, two seconds each. First clip is her walking out of Whole Foods holding this platter of food. The next is her opening it and the next is her plating it. This is what works. So let's break down. This is what's working in 2026 and beyond. And right now, specificity.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:03:49]:
Where was the specificity? It's all up in there. Fourth year med student. This is. She's speaking from her journey. So again, like I said, when, when I say, what did we used to post back in the day? Our own journey. Us going to the dog park, our. Our favorite latte, our vacation spots, our outfit of the day. This is how.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:06]:
But again, right, you're going but Shannon. That's when we wouldn't have businesses, Right, Exactly. But it needs to still be from your perspective. Your lifestyle, your thoughts, your experiences. Right? So if I'm in med school or even if I'm just a busy, the word busy, I'm like, I'm busy. Let me see. And I see food. We love to see food.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:27]:
And then I see what's the other specific? Whole Foods. I shop at Whole Foods. It's honestly, Whole Foods is my happy place. I always joke about that. So immediately I'm liking this. I'm saving this. I'm Sharing it. We're right.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:38]:
Also, the numbers 35. We also our brains are hardwired, right? In so many ways. Hardwired to respond to faces, facial expressions, food. And obviously, if we see something that is relatable to us, which for me is Whole Foods, I'm going to stop and watch. So let's break it down again. POV. You're a busy fourth year med student who tried the $35 Whole Foods family meal. And then what is it? Why do we care? This is how you structure a hook.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:11]:
A pov. A. This is your sign. Any of those silly easy reels where it's just one text box in one to two sentences. This is where you nail this. And you can nail your longer talk to cameras, your carousels, all those. But I always tell people, I'm like, let's start with simple POVs. Because this is.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:33]:
It takes several times. Sometimes I tell people, they're like, oh, it didn't work for me, Shannon. I go, I. If it doesn't work after 10, then let's talk. You gotta test these hooks, you gotta test these words, you gotta test, test, test, test. That's marketing is testing. A lot of it is throwing things out to see what sticks. Now, you don't have to do that as much if you're listening to this podcast, right? Cause I'm telling you what's gonna stick.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:55]:
But sometimes I've even had to test phrases and what stuck with you guys? And for a while I would say, oh, your reach is low, or this or that. Once I started saying 200 view jail, that resonated because you were. It was relatable to you. Right? And it was relevant. So again, what she did brilliantly is she added the why do we care? Which was. And now you have dinners for the whole week. This is the hook prompt that keeps going strong. Pov, You're a blank.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:22]:
Every time my clients use. I've. I've helped so many people go viral with this. I mean, hundreds of people I've helped go viral with this prompt. And I see it. You just see it everywhere. It's a pov. You're a blank.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:32]:
You describe who you are or who your people are.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:36]:
Who. What did you do? What, what are you frustrated with? What is the problem and how is it solved? And now the solution. So here we go. Let me break it down one more time. Ready? Because again, you guys are going to use this hook this week and I don't, I don't, I don't want you to give it one Try and give up. That's no fun. It's fun to test, I promise. All right, so pov, you're a.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:00]:
And she described herself, but you could describe your ideal person, your realtor. You're a family thinking of moving to Raleigh. You are a local coffee shop. POV, you live in D.C. and are a coffee snob. And you find your new favorite cafe in Dupont Circle. Do you see what I mean? Like again, you put in those words and I call it the rep hook. I've got several podcasts on it, but it's something relatable, something expertise.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:25]:
But when I say expertise, it also is just like proof that like, this is why you're talking about that and personal. So again, she did. This is another way to work rep in it. Into your carousels, into your simple POV reels, into your talk to camera scripts. Right? You know who you are, what your expertise is. She knows that. She's a fourth year med student. So now we know.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:42]:
Okay, what does she do? Why should I listen to her? Because what that tells me, not so much that she's an expert on whole foods, but she's an expert in. This is how she saves time in her life as a busy. Right. The relatable word. What was it? Whole foods. And the personal is. It's. The whole thing's personal.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:57]:
You see what I mean? Same goes for. Let me grab just a random hook. I'm gonna go to my explore page. Oh, here's a good one. This is a reel. Another reel. What to buy from Trader Joe's. So there you go.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:06]:
There's the relatable word on a calorie deficit and detox hormone balance program from a functional medicine doctor. There's your expertise. As you can see, there's relatable words, there's expertise, and there's personal built in. Let me find a carousel so you guys can see they're using everything. Actually, you know what? Let's talk about the carousel I did last week. That actually did really well for me. It's already at over a hundred thousand views. I shared it, I believe.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:29]:
Friday. Here's my hook. Ready? Seven simple things to start doing in December to make content creation easier in 2026. What's relatable there? December 2026. It's relatable, but it's relevant. You can kind of mix those two up. Relatable and relevant for the rep. And then what do I put under it? A subtitle that says, because I refuse to let you hustle your way into the new year so that makes it personal because now I've is how I personally feel and wanna help you.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:52]:
That is what we're going to continue to see in 2026 and I'm talking TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, all of it. So it goes with the last two episodes, right, the part one and part two, Listen to those again too, that's where I gave you guys like prompts to give ChatGPT in case you're like Shannon well I don't know what relatable words to use, I don't know how to describe myself, other than you know a lot of people do say and this is just a side note

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:53]:
a lot of people in my Reels Lab are, you know, in really sciencey and like crazy important fields like cardiovascular disease. Right. There's a doctor in the Reels Lab, she does a lot of cardiovascular.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:09:24]:
And what I've helped her do a lot and she's seeing results is, you know, taking less of the heavy duty words and more like from someone who helps people live longer. Right? Again, if you do have like, did you see how she said in that one about the Trader Joes? She could have just said her position, but again, that's kind of sciency to a lot of our brains, right? So she says on a calorie deficit and detox hormone balance that most of us understand. And then we're like, oh, and she's a doctor. Okay. So again, as much as you guys can use the prompts I gave you in the most recent podcast and just keep talking to your people. Keep. That's why it's so it's such a good idea to keep showing up in stories and talking about things because that's where the DMs happen. And then you hear from them, the pain points, the words, the frustrations, and you write those down and you find out the things that they attach to and where they do shop and where they live and what's going on in their lives.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:10:14]:
And the more you get to know your audience, the better your content is going to be and

Shannon McKinstrie [00:10:14]:
the more confident you're going to be to hit post. I tell people all the time, the biggest Instagram hack of all is get to know your audience and bond with them. And the more we keep looking at 2025 and the rest of this year and 2026, as these are real humans behind these screens, they want relatable words, they want to see themselves in your Content. And that's what we're going to keep seeing. That type of Content is going to continue to do well because we can attach to it, we can relate to it. It's relevant to us, and it's timely and it's personal. from your own experiences and perspectives thoughts opinions experiences that's what's winning

Shannon McKinstrie [00:10:49]:
And will continue to win. We're seeing it more and more again. Even, like I said, the big box stores are doing it. The Taco Bells, the Diet Cokes, all their content feels relatable. It makes people feel seen and heard and appreciated and like this community is for them. So there you go. I cannot wait for 2026. I truly can't.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:11:13]:
Because we're getting back to just being social and having fun with our content again. And I could not love it more for us, friend. Love you. And I'll talk to you next week.