Take a second, scroll through your feed right
now. Yeah, just take a look. It is 2026 and AI
is everywhere, but we are honestly drowning right
now. Oh, totally. It is just a sea of identical
Canva templates. Lifeless lists are literally
everywhere. The five things you didn't know format
is exhausted. It feels completely hollow. It
really does. Welcome to the deep dive. We have
a very clear mission today. We are unpacking
Max Anne's latest guide. Right. It explores a
three -level brand system. Specifically, it focuses
on Instagram carousels. It is a brilliant strategy
for creators. We are going to explore why carousels
dominate the algorithm. Then we will look at
using Claude properly. Yeah, as a true narrative
engine, not just a basic chatbot. Exactly. After
that, we cover custom visuals. That is where
Nano Banana comes into play. And finally, we
talk about scalability. You really want to scale
without losing your brand's unique soul. That
is the ultimate goal. So let us jump right into
segment one. Carousels are absolutely dominating
the landscape right now. The engagement advantage
is incredibly real. I mean, you see them everywhere.
Right. Carousel engagement is up more than 30%.
That is compared directly to single image posts.
That is a massive jump. The algorithm really
seems to love them. It does. And there is a clear
psychological reason. Every single swipe signals
immense value. It is a micro -commitment from
you. Exactly. It gives the algorithm multiple
distinct data points. It registers your active
dwell time. So it knows you are actually paying
attention. Right. Then it re -shows your content
to similar users. But there is also this Reels
hybrid trick. Oh, yeah. Many creators completely
miss this detail. It changes the discovery mechanics
entirely. You are talking about adding music
to the carousel. Yes. When you attach a trending
audio track, everything changes. Instagram basically
shifts its behavior. How does that actually work
behind the scenes? Well, the platform's audiograph
maps that music. It essentially classifies the
carousel as a reel. Oh, wow. So it pushes your
post through the Reels feed. Precisely. You get
that massive Reels -level discovery. Your reach
explodes past your existing followers. But you
still keep that dense educational format. Exactly.
Readers have to slow down and swipe. It builds
deep trust over time. It naturally drives saves
and follows. A seven -slide carousel builds credibility
incredibly fast. It honestly works way better
than a long caption. Yeah, it establishes a strong
personal brand quickly. But you need a reliable
system to build them. And that brings us directly
to Claude. Most people use Claude completely
wrong today. They really do. They treat it like
a basic word processor. They type in a simple
generic prompt. They ask the AI for a few quick
ideas. And the results are usually just average
at best. Then they feel disappointed and blame
the tool. Because Claude is not just a simple
writer. It is a powerful structural thinker.
Right. When you feed it a raw YouTube script,
it reads deeply. It actually looks for the underlying
narrative arc. It deeply understands creative
intent. It gives each individual slide a highly
specific job. It maps out the psychology of the
reader. Exactly. You get a strong visual hook
first. Then you intentionally build narrative
tension. You provide a clear, logical explanation
next. Right. Then, you deliver a highly satisfying
payoff. Finally, you end with a strong call to
action. It acts more like a senior thinking partner.
Treating Claude like a simple chatbot is a huge
mistake. Oh, completely. It is like using a supercomputer
as a pocket calculator. That is a perfect way
to frame it. I mean, a calculator just does basic,
rigid math. But a supercomputer actually predicts
complex weather systems. Asking Claude for three
tips is just basic math. Yeah. But asking it
to build a narrative journey changes everything.
You unlock its actual potential that way. It
is a completely different tier of output. But
why is understanding this narrative intent so
critical? Why is it needed for a simple seven
-slide social media post? Because a carousel
cannot just be random text. People have incredibly
short attention spans today. Right. A post must
carefully guide a viewer forward. You have to
move them from initial curiosity to deep understanding.
Then you strategically drive them to take action.
That psychological journey is what actually stops
the scroll. Without true intent, people just
swipe away immediately. Ah, I see. So it builds
a journey from curiosity to action, not just
text on slides. Exactly. That brings us directly
to level one. This is the basic workflow everyone
starts with. It focuses strictly on pure, raw
speed. You paste a raw script into Claude. You
ask it to restructure the text entirely. And
it creates a complete carousel sequence for you.
Yeah, it is a very fast process. It easily saves
you half an hour of manual work. The slides usually
flow quite well together. The core message is
generally clear, but there is a major limitation
here. The result is completely generic. Yes,
unfortunately. It looks exactly like every other
AI post out there. It completely lacks a unique
identity. It just feels sterile. It lacks soul.
I know that exact feeling so well. I still wrestle
with prompt drift myself. Oh, really? Yeah. My
AI outputs start sounding like a robot over time.
The words get rigid and overly formal. It gets
incredibly frustrating to read. It really does.
You lose your own voice. It happens to absolutely
everyone. That is exactly why level two is so
important. You need to add a comprehensive brand
system. Yes. This single step changes everything
about the output. What actually goes into a brand
system document? It is surprisingly simple to
put together. It is just a one or two page text
document. OK, so it is pretty brief. Yeah. You
list your specific brand colors and hex codes.
You clearly define your typography direction.
You deeply describe your target audience, too.
Right. You outline your specific grand voice.
Is it highly casual? Is it highly authoritative?
You also set strict creative rules, like explicitly
telling it to use absolutely no jargon. Or forcing
it to keep sentences very short. So you upload
this document into a dedicated Claude project.
Then you run the exact same task again. The shifting
quality is immediate and obvious. Claude now
actually proposes a slide structure first. Yes.
It acts like a true editorial workflow. It stops
just generating blind text. You review the logical
flow before design is locked. Exactly. You can
actively shape the ideas early on. Real content
teams work exactly this way in agencies. There
is a vital quote from the text here. I love this
one. Which one? Branding is not decoration. It
is guidance. Oh, that is such a good line. That
is a powerful mental shift. You are not just
decorating generated content anymore. Right.
You are actively editing underlying ideas. It
stops being a mere generation tool. It becomes
a customized creative system. It operates perfectly
within your specific bounding box. But how does
a simple one -page text document change things?
How does it alter the AI's behavior so drastically?
It comes down to the garbage in, garbage out
principle. Right. Giving clear context deeply
grounds the AI model. It anchors the AI in your
specific communication style. It effectively
narrows the universe of possible answers. Exactly.
Without context, the model just guesses wildly
from its training data. Garbage in, garbage out.
Clear context turns a generic tool into your
personal editor. Precisely. Let us move on to
level three now. We need to talk about custom
visuals. Yes, visuals are huge. So we fixed the
generic text issue. We gave Claude a strong brand
document. But text is only half the battle on
Instagram. If your background images still look
like cheap AI art, people just scroll past. They
absolutely will. How do we make the visuals match
that new editorial standard? That is where Nano
Banana enters the picture. It is chosen for a
very specific reason. Nano Banana has unusually
strong text rendering capabilities. Yes, that
is absolutely crucial for visual carousels. You
need highly readable. crisp headlines. They have
to sit right on top of complex visual backgrounds.
Right. Most image generators completely mangle
text overlays. They just turn into gibberish.
Nano Banana handles those custom visual assets
beautifully. It does. But Claude is still running
the entire show here. Claude acts as your dedicated
art director. Right. You do not just prompt Nano
Banana blindly. You upload custom reference images
directly to the Claude project. Claude analyzes
their underlying emotional tone. Exactly. then
it selects the absolute best image for each slide
it bases this crucial selection on narrative
energy that concept completely changes how we
view ai visuals it really is a game changer but
how does it actually analyze emotional tone claude
actually looks at the raw visual composition
it reads the metadata the image itself so it
registers that a photo has high contrast and
deep shadows it specifically identifies that
as high tension then it perfectly pairs that
dark image with an aggressive hook Most AI carousels
fail because of random images. You might have
a truly beautiful generated photo. But it conflicts
entirely with the written text. A calm, sunny
image on a punchy slide feels totally disconnected.
The viewer feels that subtle friction instantly.
Narrative energy fixes that exact problem. A
hook slide needs very high visual tension. It
has to break the user's scrolling pattern. Strong
contrast works perfectly for a loud call to action.
Calm, muted visuals naturally support complex
data points. Beat. But how do we actually prompt
nano -banana effectively? Do we just type in
what we want? No, you use the reference image
trick. You do not ever start from scratch. You
drop an image you absolutely love into Claude.
Right. Claude meticulously analyzes the entire
composition. It describes the specific style,
the framing, and the exact lighting. Claude essentially
acts as a prompt engineer. That is someone who
writes precise instructions for AI. Exactly.
You get a highly structured professional prompt.
You paste it directly into NanoBanana. It completely
removes all the frustrating manual guesswork.
It saves so much time. There are two distinct
versions of the tool to consider. The guide mentions
Nano Banana Pro and Nano Banana 2. Nano Banana
Pro handles very complex visual scenes. It is
built natively on Gemini 3 Pro. It offers extremely
high visual precision. It is best used for intricate
details and complex lighting. But Nano Banana
2 is much faster to use. Yes. It is built on
Gemini 3 .1 Flash. It runs two to three times
faster overall. It is also significantly cheaper
to use daily. Right. It is the absolute best
default for everyday content. You save Pro for
moments requiring maximum visual quality. But
I have to ask a structural question here. Why
go through Clod at all here? Why not just write
prompts directly into Nano Banana? Manual prompting
causes massive stylistic inconsistencies. Every
single prompt you write starts slightly differently.
Human error naturally creeps into the process.
Exactly. The results rarely match perfectly across
a full carousel. Claude provides a reliable,
reusable, prompt generation layer. It perfectly
matches your established visual styles every
single time. It keeps you on brand. Starting
from scratch causes inconsistencies. Claude guarantees
stylistic matching across the whole carousel.
That is exactly it. We are going to take a really
quick break right here. Stick around. Sponsor
read placeholder. And we're back. We have covered
text. We have covered visuals. Let us talk about
scaling this entire process safely. Scalability
is all about effectively using cloud projects.
Right. Without projects, you essentially start
from zero every single time. You have to re -explain
your entire brand repeatedly. It is exhausting.
That significantly slows you down every day.
It makes the final output much less consistent
overall. Projects change that operational dynamic
entirely. They safely store your specific brand
guidelines permanently. They hold your entire
visual image library. They keep your winning
prompt structures ready to go. There is also
this fascinating concept called the skill layer.
Frequent instructions literally become reusable
AI skills. Right. They activate automatically
whenever they are needed. Strict formatting rules
just live there permanently. Specific brand voice
instructions are just always on. It is honestly
like stacking Lego blocks of data. That is a
great way to visualize it. Think about how we
usually use AI right now. It is like melting
down raw plastic. Yeah, starting from absolute
scratch. You have to mold a completely new Lego
brick every single time you want to build a simple
wall. It is wildly inefficient. But with cloud
projects, you prefabricate those blocks. Your
brand voice is a permanent block. Your color
palette is a stored block. You build a strong
foundation once, and then you just get to play.
Everything builds smoothly upon the last session.
The guide also provides some very practical execution
tips. First, always design your carousels in
1080 by 1350. That is the specific 4 by 5 vertical
aspect ratio. Yes. It maximizes vertical screen
space on mobile phones. It completely fills the
viewer's screen. It increases viewer attention
and retention significantly. Also, keep your
carousels perfectly between 7 and 10 slides.
Why that specific number? It gives enough depth
to provide real value, but it avoids losing viewers
halfway through the sequence. It is the absolute
sweet spot for completion rates. And you should
always batch create your images. Generate 20
to 30 images in one focus session. You build
a cohesive visual library very quickly that way.
But the really exciting part is the automation
horizon. The future of this brand system is fully
automated. You can actually use cloud connectors
to Google Drive. Right. It automatically pulls
in fresh content and visual assets. You drop
a script in a folder and it activates. No more
tedious manual uploads every day. And future
versions could tightly integrate cloud code directly.
You get completely seamless automated content
pipeline. Whoa. Two sec silence. Imagine an entirely
automated pipeline building branded content while
you sleep. It is a truly wild thought to process,
but I have to push back here a little bit. Okay,
go for it. Does relying on this deep skill layer
and heavy automation eventually kill a creator's
unique voice? It is a common worry. Do we just
become robots eventually? It is a very valid
fear, but the exact opposite is actually true
here. Oh, so. The system runs entirely on your
specific brand documents. It strictly uses your
personal visual choices and rules. Because it
is highly tailored to you, it actually scales
your authenticity. Exactly. It actively prevents
your content from becoming diluted over time.
So storing your strategy means that AI scales
your authentic voice, not a generic one. That
is the overarching lesson of this entire guide.
You have to stop asking AI for isolated single
posts. A random prompt always gives you a random
result. You need to start building a reliable,
repeatable system. Claude capably handles the
deep structural thinking. It manages the editorial
logic and the narrative structure. Nano Banana
cleanly handles all the complex visual assets.
And your customized brand system holds it all
securely together. Pure speed and deep creative
intention can absolutely coexist. You do not
ever have to sacrifice quality just to move faster.
Level one gives you sheer raw speed. Level two
gives you deep, reliable consistency. Level three
gives you a truly unique visual identity. This
is definitely not a cheap creator shortcut. It
is a fundamentally smarter way to work daily.
It is a true creative operating system for modern
creators. It really is. It should be. We've covered
a massive amount of ground today. Thank you so
much for joining us on this deep dive. It has
been a fun one. But before we go, I want to leave
you with one final thought. You spend all this
focused time building the perfect engine. If
you successfully build an AI system that perfectly
executes your brand's established visual and
written rules, what happens when you genuinely
want to evolve? How do you effectively teach
a perfectly compliant system to take a massive
creative risk and intentionally break its own
rules?