Kendra had a finished book, a launch on the horizon, and no Instagram presence. She didn't need a content machine. She needed a way to show up consistently, in her own voice, on a platform not exactly built for grief, disability, and death.

The strategy had to be as thoughtful and authentic as the book itself. It had to build an audience of grieving parents first and healthcare workers second, and it had to position Kendra as the heart behind the story, not only as a healthcare provider.

We began with a questionnaire and a two-hour, in-person strategy workshop. Together we defined who the account is for: mothers raising a child with a disability or rare diagnosis, bereaved parents, and, as the widest circle, any parent who has felt the gap between the parent they planned to be and the one they became. Nurses, doctors, sonographers, and special needs educators round out the secondary audience.

Four detailed personas (The Overwhelmed Mother, The Grieving Mother, The Imperfect Parent, and The Healthcare Worker) gave Kendra a simple test to run before every post: who is this for, what do they need to feel, and what do I want them to do?

From there we built six content pillars, from Star Stories and Grief, Death & the Truth to Things I Know to Be True, each with formats and sample hooks. The word "selcouth" (strange, unusual, unfamiliar, and yet wonderful) became the lens for the whole strategy.

Kendra's feed should feel like the inside of her book: cosmic, earthy, honest, and alive. Working from her own paintings (the doorways series, the ocean plastic "confetti" works), her studio photography, and animations by visual and AI artist Beatriz Chamussy, we developed a palette of eight watercolor inspired hues and a type system that pairs an elegant serif for headlines with a clean sans for body text. Two typewriter and handwritten accent fonts carry book excerpts, short poems, and beliefs. A shared Pinterest mood-board and creative routes in Canva let Kendra review and approve the direction before we built anything.

We designed a full set of custom Canva templates: six post templates (one per pillar), six Story templates, and six Story Highlight covers featuring a hand-drawn star, each in its own color combination from the palette. Everything is built to be easy for Kendra, or anyone helping her, to replicate without a designer.

We also coached her through scripting and recording her first reel, speaking directly to camera, and set up a simple phone-based workflow for recording, editing, and subtitling.

Using a hook, story, bridge, and call-to-action framework, we wrote a month of ready-to-publish captions with Kendra, paired with a one-month editorial calendar and visual grid balanced across pillars and formats. Seven hashtag sets and optimized bio copy came with it.

Everything was compiled into a beautifully designed Instagram Starter Kit, a PDF reference guide covering positioning, visual identity, templates, sample grids, growth tactics, and tools. It's a document Kendra can hand to an assistant or return to at any time, followed by a walkthrough session to make sure she felt confident carrying it forward.