Carousels · Playbook
The Carouselmaxxing Playbook
Stop designing every carousel by hand. The 5-step system that turns one idea into an on-brand carousel, and every comment into a lead.
The problem: prompts, not a system
Most AI carousel workflows are a list of prompts. You still paste them every time, fix the colours every time, and every carousel comes out looking a little different. That isn't a system. It's a slower way of designing by hand.
A system decides the look once. Your colours, fonts and voice live in one brand sheet. Research, script, design, post and DM are five steps that hand off to each other. You approve. The rest follows the rules.
Step 1
Steal the structure, never the words
Pick 10-20 carousels in your niche that beat their creator's usual numbers. Saves and shares matter more than likes. Your own saved folder is the best place to start: it's already filtered by someone like your buyer.
For each one, write down the hook type, the cover formula, what each slide does (problem, mechanism, steps, proof, CTA) and the one visual on each slide. After ten, the patterns repeat. That pattern sheet is your template.
Step 2
One idea, one buyer, a named method
Remove the tool names from your idea. Would your buyer still care? If not, re-angle it toward their problem. Then write the cover in three tiers:
- Lead-in small, sets up the payoff: "How I turned my saves into"
- Payoff huge, a result you can prove: "100K+ views"
- Named method "The Saved Folder Method". Naming it is what gets it saved.
Step 3
One visual per slide, one brand sheet
Every content slide has the same four parts. Nothing else.
| Part | Rule |
|---|---|
| Headline | 2 lines, the second in your accent colour. About 20 characters per line. |
| Subhead | One line. One phrase in accent. |
| Visual | ONE: a phone UI, a chat, steps, a before and after, a big number, a diagram. |
| Caption | One or two lines. The "so what". |
No numbered boxes, no page counters, no clip art. One accent colour does the pointing. One highlight colour appears once in the whole carousel, on the most important number. Write these rules down once, in a brand sheet you give the AI every time, and every carousel comes out looking like yours.
Step 4
Approve, then post
Look at all the slides side by side, fix what's off, and approve. Only then post. On LinkedIn, post it as a PDF document: it usually reaches more people than images.
Step 5
Every comment is a lead
The last slide asks for one keyword. The keyword triggers a DM with your resource and one question. 48 hours later, log saves, shares, keyword comments and DM replies. Keep the hooks that won and feed them into the next round of research. That loop is the system.
The keyword on the slide, in the caption and in your DM tool must be the same word. A mismatch quietly loses every lead.
Want carousels and videos made for your brand?
This playbook gets you there by hand. For our clients we build and run the whole thing: carousels plus short-form video, in their brand, ready to post. Book a call and we'll walk you through it on your business.
Book a callOne carousel won? Max it.
When a carousel beats your usual numbers, don't move on. Make 5 more on the same topic with a new hook and a new angle each time. The Videomaxxing Playbook works the same way for carousels.
Want this done for you?
We research, write, design and post your carousels and videos in your brand. You just approve.
Building it yourself? Our community opens soon. Unlock the prompts above and you're on the early-access list.
Unlock the 4 Prompts and the Brand Sheet
The copy-paste prompts for every step, the brand sheet and the 14-point checklist. Free, opens instantly. You also get early access to the community.