Don’t know what to post on Instagram. There are so many things you can post on Instagram that the list is almost endless.
The thing to remember when it comes to Instagram is that it is visual. You have to post visually appealing content. Content that people will like and engage with.
Here are some things you can post on Instagram:
Product Photos
Posting photos of your products, people using your products, photoshoots of your products or anything involving your product. Make a post about your products but don’t overshare or oversell your products on Instagram.
Instagram is a social media app after all so you don’t just talk about how great your product is 24/7.
If you were invited to a party, you wouldn’t talk about how great you are and what you can do. Well, if your name is Donald Trump then you wouldn’t shut up on how good you are! And I bet someone would want to smash a brick in your head!
But any normal person wouldn’t continuously talk about themselves or their product. They would ask other people questions, have interest in other people, talk about events going on, etc.
A good ratio to follow is to post about your product 1 in 4 times. So for every 3 normal posts you do the 4th should be about your product.
Reposts
Using one of the many repost apps available on the app stores, you can repost any popular photos or videos you find on Instagram.
If you have no content or are have just set up your account, a good place to start is to repost other people’s content. Just make sure you give credit to the original account.
Quotes
People on Instagram love quotes. They love liking and sharing motivational and inspirational quotes with friends. Everyone feels down in the dumps sometimes and quotes are what can inspire someone out of a slump.
They don’t just have to be motivational or inspirational quotes either. They can be funny quotes, thoughtful quotes or anything else. Entrepreneurial magazine Foundr uses this strategy to great effect and is part of their growth strategy to how they got 1 million plus followers.
Fill in the blanks
My favourite movie is ______. The greatest basketball player ever is ______. Fill in the blanks are easy to do and engage your audience like crazy. Loads of people love sharing their own opinion and what better way to get people to do that than with a little bit of Fill in the blanks.
It acts as a little game for your followers. Your fill in the blanks can be about anything and you don’t have to limit it at all. Get creative about it and make sure you have a good visuals to match.
Polls
Polls encourages people to express their opinion. They can be something like ‘which product is better, A or B’. Or it can even be asking someone’s opinion on something, e.g. ‘Which golfer is better, Vijay Singh or Rory McIlroy?’
You can use polls to great effective on your Story. You’d be surprised to how well people respond and engage in polls in your Instagram Story. A fantastic way to get people to engage with your brand.
Blog Post
If you don’t have a blog for your business, what are you doing with your life! You should have a blog for your business because it builds credibility for your business, shows you know about your industry and you care enough to write about it.
Not only that, there is the fact the blog posts can rank well in Google and other search engines and that can bring extra traffic.
But I digress. You can post of photo of your your cover photo for your blog post and write a bit of information about your blog post in the caption.
Then at the end of the caption you can write ‘Read the blog post by following the link in our bio or go to link https://www.xyz.abc’.
For the duration of the post or length of time you decide you can put the link into the website field in your bio on Instagram so your followers can check out the blog post on your website if they want to.
This is a great way to get people back to your site, just make sure the blog post you write is educational, valuable and of interest to your target audience.
eBooks
Another fantastic way to educate your followers and potentially convert them into customers. You can’t actually list your eBook on Instagram but what you can do is post a link of the download to it in your bio.
So what you should do is the same as I taught you in the earlier chapters. Post a photo of the book and then in the caption direct people to the link of your eBook.
This should be directed to a landing page where your followers would just need to enter their email address in exchange for the eBook.
Your eBook should be valuable enough so your followers will want to exchange their email for the eBook without even thinking about it.
You can also cross promote your ebook on your Stories. This will get those extra people signed up to your email list, and you know how valuable an email list is.
Behind the scenes
Having an inside look at what’s going on behind the scenes adds more credibility and builds trust between you and your followers. How would you feel if you saw a glimpse of how one of your favourite brands operate? It would be pretty cool right!
Why is this strategy effective? It’s simple. People buy from people. People buy from people they trust. It’s like when you get a DVD and they have those bonus behind the scenes clips and interviews. Some people get the DVDs just for those bonuses they chuck in. Isn’t it good knowing what the actors, directors and cast go through and what they are thinking during filming.
Likewise people love it when they get it an exclusive look at their favourite brand. Your behind the scenes post could be a candid shot of your team working on a project or a behind the scene picture of a photoshoot.
It could even just be of a picture of a team networking event, or a team outing.
Favourite books
Sharing posts of your favourite books and telling everyone why is another sure fire way to build engagement and potentially increase your following. Sharing your favourite books or movies is a good way to connect with your followers.
You can even share the books you and your team read. Or even better you can even start your own little book club in which you share the books you have read and let your followers know what you learnt from it and ask them in return if they have read the book and what they think about it.
Tips
Just share useful tips and share advice with your followers. If you are in the basketball niche, share basketball tips and advice. If you are in the football niche, share tips and advice on football and how to become a better football player. You get the picture, right?
Comics/Memes
A meme in case you didn’t know is a picture with an overlay of funny text either underneath or above the picture. You don’t have to make your own comics or memes. Although you can if you want but there is plenty you can just reshare from the internet.
Videos
Reposting funny videos or any informative/interesting/entertaining videos is another way of engaging your followers and keeping them interested into your account.
Just use one of the many reposting apps mentioned in the earlier chapters and repost from other accounts. Be sure to credit the account you got the video from for good practice.
You can also download videos from YouTube and put them onto your Instagram account.
With videos you are also more likely to get people commenting on your posts as well
Photo contest
A photo contest is another form of a giveaway. It’s a good way to increase brand awareness. You should use your own branded hashtag when posting about your photo contest and encourage your followers to use that specific hashtag when entering.
This is a good way to increase engagement to your account but also reward your followers. At the end you can maybe give the winner one of your products or something else valuable to your audience.
Giveaways
We talked about how effective giveaways can be in the previous chapter. They can bring an abundance of new followers who are interested in what you say. Offer something valuable that your followers may want that is related to your niche.
For example, if you have a business that makes basketball trainers you could giveaway a pair of your basketball trainers or tickets to the latest NBA game. To win that users could simply follow your account and tag a two friends or join your email list.
You don’t want to overdo giveaways and as you will just get the wrong type of people following your account. You know the people who just hunt for freebies. They are not really valuable followers and might may just end up unfollowing you after a short while.
You should do a giveaway once or twice every few months or you could do it once you have reached a big milestone like reaching 10,000 followers or 20,000 followers.
Caption this photo
Another fun little game you can play with your followers. The premise of this is simple; post a photo of something and in the capiton put in ‘Caption this photo’.
You should get loads of comments with this method and may even get some funny answers and have a good few laughs.
Industry News
Anything interesting happening in your industry? There probably is and you can probably share some news with your followers about it.
Your followers would equally voice their opinion on the news. It’s a good way to communicate with your follows and get them to share their opinion.
Be sure to ask them what they think about the news.
Ask for predictions
Is there a big event happening? Chances are a lot of people are going to be tuning into it as well and they will be following it. Events relating to your brands niche are a good chance to engage your audience, increase your following and expose yourself to new people.
If you have a Instagram account that sells footballs for example, and the FIFA World Cup is starting, you can ask your followers different questions like ‘Which country do you think is going to win the World Cup?’, or ‘Who do you reckon will win when Argentina vs Brazil happens?’
Truth or Fiction Questions
Truth or Fiction. Kanye West served as President of America.
Okay that one was quite easy but you get the point. These are simple to do and is another fun game you can play with your followers.
This is another great way to engage with your followers. It gets a lot of people to comment and join in.
And it’s pretty simple for your followers to take part.
Coupons
Coupons and discount codes. Who doesn’t love them? Everybody loves getting a little extra money off their purchase. Some people just need a 10% coupon just to give them that extra push to purchase.
I recommend you don’t give out discounts too much because it devalues your brand or business. People will then expect discounts every time.
Expert Insights
Share something you read about an expert shared about your industry. Has something changed about your industry? Why not break the news to your followers?
Not only will this help make your business into a bit of an expert but your followers will also think you are knowledgeable and passionate about the industry.
Unexpected use for your product
Can you use your product to play golf with and watch Netflix? I haven’t seen a product that’s able to do both of them (if you can invent it, you’d make a killing!).
Think about the oil spray WD-40 there are so many uses for WD-40. It’s not just used to get rid of rust but it can be used to clean, to protect things and remove moisture. Just take a look at the WD-40’s Instagram account for some inspiration on how to do this properly.
They have tons of different real life uses that you can use WD-40 for.
Q&A Session
If you have some frequently asked questions from customers, Instagram is a great way to answer them. You can make a post from common questions and post them from time to time.
Customers generally have questions shipping questions and product questions. Why not make a visually appealing post out of them?
You can do this with Instagram Stories, customers can submit questions and you can answer them and display them on your Story. Then the questions and answers you get, you can display them on your Story highlights.
Weekly Round Up
Say you have an Instagram account for your business that sells football boots and footballs. You could do weekly roundups about transfer news, results, and any general news about football.
You could make a weekly round up Story post as well to accompany the posts on your feed. As well that you could share it on your Story Highlights.
This gives you some credibility in your industry as it makes it out you have a viable interest in the industry and knowledge.
Pictures from recent Industry events
Did you go to a recent award show or event to do with your industry? Share it with your followers! They would love to see what’s happening.
@katespadeny use their Instagram to showcase celebrities wearing their products at award ceremonies.
Better yet did you win an award.or did your company win a prestigious award. Show off and share it with your followers. Update your bio with your new award, e.g. Winner of xxx 2019 award.
Get creative, you don’t just have to stop there. There are endless amount of things you can post on your Instagram feed, you just have to be creative.
Try including a CTA (call to action) to your posts caption. This could include asking your followers to like, share, comment, tag a friend, go to a certain link or direct messaging you.
We hope these tips helped and solved your question on what to post on Instagram. It’s all about getting creative and posting something that you followers would want to engage with.
If this article helped, please consider sharing it.
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