You have a great coaching idea in your head. The problem is turning it into something swipeable before the motivation fades. Carousels are the highest-saved format on Instagram, but building seven slides from scratch feels like seven small decisions, and most coaches stall on slide one.
This prompt gives you Instagram carousel ideas for coaches on demand. You hand the AI a single concept, your niche, and the action you want followers to take, and it returns a full 7-slide teaching carousel: hook, problem, reframe, three steps, and a soft call to action, plus a caption and design notes. By the end of this page you’ll also understand why the structure works, so you can write sharper prompts every time.
When to use this
- You have a lesson or insight but no time to shape it into slides.
- You want to post consistently without designing from a blank canvas.
- You’re repurposing a coaching session, a client question, or a newsletter into a carousel.
- You want a save-worthy educational post instead of another quote graphic.
- You need a few hook variations to test what stops the scroll.
The prompt
Copy this whole block into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini:
You are an expert Instagram content strategist who writes educational carousels for coaches. Your job is to turn ONE coaching concept into a 7-slide carousel that teaches something useful and earns the save.
Before writing, ask me up to 3 clarifying questions if anything below is unclear. Otherwise, proceed.
CONTEXT
- My niche: {{NICHE}}
- My ideal follower: {{IDEAL_FOLLOWER}}
- The one concept I want to teach: {{CONCEPT}}
- The action I want them to take: {{CTA}}
- My tone: {{TONE}}
TASK
Write a 7-slide carousel. Use exactly this structure:
- Slide 1 (Hook): a scroll-stopping cover line, max 8 words, that makes my ideal follower stop and swipe. Add a short subline underneath.
- Slide 2 (Problem): name the real problem they're feeling, in their own words.
- Slide 3 (Reframe): the surprising truth or shift in thinking behind {{CONCEPT}}.
- Slides 4-6 (Steps): three concrete, do-it-today steps or examples. One idea per slide.
- Slide 7 (CTA): a soft recap line plus this call to action: {{CTA}}.
For every slide give me: (a) the on-slide text, kept short enough to read in 3 seconds, and (b) a one-line design note (what image, layout, or visual cue fits).
Then write a caption of 60-120 words that expands on the concept and repeats the CTA, followed by 5-8 relevant hashtags on a separate line.
CONSTRAINTS
- Plain, human language. No buzzwords, no 'in today's fast-paced world', no fake statistics.
- Match my tone. No emojis unless my tone is casual.
- One clear idea per slide. If a slide needs more than 30 words, cut it.
After the carousel, give me 2 alternative hook lines for Slide 1 that I could test.
How to customize it
Replace the five {{VARIABLES}} before you send it:
| Variable | What to put | Example |
|---|---|---|
{{NICHE}} |
Your specific coaching niche | nutrition coaching for busy professionals |
{{IDEAL_FOLLOWER}} |
The person you want to reach | overworked professionals who skip meals then binge at night |
{{CONCEPT}} |
The one idea or lesson to teach | the nighttime cravings are a daytime under-eating problem |
{{CTA}} |
The action you want | save this post and follow @yourhandle for one habit a week |
{{TONE}} |
How you sound | warm, plain-spoken, no diet shame |
See it in action (full example)
Here is the exact prompt, filled in for a nutrition coach. This is the whole input, nothing hidden:
You are an expert Instagram content strategist who writes educational carousels for coaches. Your job is to turn ONE coaching concept into a 7-slide carousel that teaches something useful and earns the save.
Before writing, ask me up to 3 clarifying questions if anything below is unclear. Otherwise, proceed.
CONTEXT
- My niche: nutrition coaching for busy professionals
- My ideal follower: overworked professionals who skip meals then binge at night
- The one concept I want to teach: you don't have a willpower problem at night, you have a daytime under-eating problem
- The action I want them to take: save this post and follow @sarah.eats.real for one practical habit each week
- My tone: warm, plain-spoken, no diet shame
TASK
Write a 7-slide carousel... [rest of the prompt unchanged]
And here is the complete output the model returns:
Slide 1 – Hook On-slide text: “It’s not willpower. It’s lunch.” Subline: Why your 9pm cravings start at noon. Design note: Bold white text on a dark kitchen-at-night photo; subline smaller underneath.
Slide 2 – Problem On-slide text: You’re “good” all day. Coffee, a quick salad, no time. Then 9pm hits and you eat everything in the cupboard, and feel like you failed again. Design note: Plain background, conversational text, like a note to a friend.
Slide 3 – Reframe On-slide text: That’s not a discipline problem. Your body is collecting a debt. Under-eat by day and it demands the calories back at night, when you’re tired and your guard is down. Design note: Large “debt” word highlighted; simple icon of a downward then upward line.
Slide 4 – Step 1 On-slide text: Eat a real breakfast with protein. 25-30g. Eggs, Greek yogurt, or last night’s leftovers. This sets the tone for the whole day. Design note: Photo of a simple high-protein breakfast.
Slide 5 – Step 2 On-slide text: Protect lunch like a meeting. Block 20 minutes on your calendar. A skipped lunch is a loan you repay with interest at midnight. Design note: Screenshot-style calendar block labelled “Lunch.”
Slide 6 – Step 3 On-slide text: Add an afternoon anchor snack around 3-4pm. Protein plus fibre. It keeps the 6pm hunger spike from running your whole evening. Design note: Flat-lay of apple + handful of nuts.
Slide 7 – CTA On-slide text: Tonight isn’t about willpower. Feed the day, and the night takes care of itself. CTA: Save this so you remember it at 9pm, and follow @sarah.eats.real for one practical habit each week. Design note: Warm closing photo of the coach; handle clearly visible.
Caption If your evenings feel like a battle with the fridge, read this. Most of my clients don’t have a willpower problem at night, they have an eating gap during the day. Skip breakfast, rush past lunch, and your body keeps score. By the evening it’s not really a choice anymore, it’s a correction. The fix isn’t more discipline. It’s feeding yourself enough, on time, while you still have the energy to decide. Start with breakfast tomorrow and watch what happens to your 9pm cravings. Save this post so it’s there when you need it, and follow @sarah.eats.real for one practical habit each week.
nutritioncoach #intuitiveeating #busyprofessionals #healthyhabits #foodfreedom #eatenough #wellnesscoach
2 alternative hooks to test: 1. “Your 9pm cravings have a 12pm cause.” 2. “Stop blaming willpower. Blame lunch.”
That is a publish-ready carousel. Drop the slide text into your template, follow the design notes, and you’re posting in minutes.
Why this works
Three LLM principles are doing the heavy lifting here. Learn them and every prompt you write gets better:
- Role priming. The opening line (“You are an expert Instagram content strategist who writes educational carousels for coaches”) tells the model which slice of its knowledge to use. “Write me a carousel” pulls from the bland average of the internet; naming a specific role pulls from the good stuff. Always assign a role that matches the job.
- Structure as a thinking scaffold. The hook-problem-reframe-steps-CTA outline isn’t just formatting, it forces the model to teach in a proven order: stop the scroll, name the pain, shift the belief, then make it actionable. When you give the model a clear structure, it stops rambling and starts reasoning slide by slide. Telling it exactly what each slide does is why the output is usable instead of generic.
- Constraints are quality control. The rules (“max 8 words,” “read in 3 seconds,” “one idea per slide,” “no buzzwords or fake stats”) each remove a common failure mode. Carousels die when slides are wordy, so the word caps fix that before it happens. And the “ask me up to 3 clarifying questions first” line lets the model fill gaps by asking instead of guessing, which is the single biggest fix for generic AI content.
Do this now
- Copy the prompt above into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.
- Replace the five variables with your real niche, follower, concept, CTA, and tone.
- Send it. If it asks clarifying questions, answer them honestly.
- Paste the slide text into your carousel template, follow the design notes, and post it this week.
Pro tips
- Pick one concept, not three. A carousel teaches a single idea well. If you’re tempted to add a fourth step, save it for the next post.
- Keep the clarifying-questions line. It’s the difference between slides that sound like you and slides that sound like everyone.
- Steal your own DMs. The best
{{CONCEPT}}is a question a client actually asked you this week. Real questions make real hooks. - Build a hook swipe file. Save every alternative Slide 1 the model gives you. Within a month you’ll have a library of openers that stop your audience specifically.
0 comments
No comments yet.