What to Post on Instagram: 15 Ideas for 2021
Want to engage your audience even more in 2021? Looking for ideas on what to post to Instagram to make it happen?
It goes without saying; Instagram is huge. There are over one billion of us using the platform actively each month, after all. What’s more, so many of us log into the site every day that we’ve made Instagram the second most logged in to social media platform, after Facebook.
But here’s the best part, especially for any social media marketer – 90% of Instagram accounts follow at least one brand. That’s according to the social media site’s data, by the way.
As said, Instagram is huge. But so is the competition that tries to take your audience’s attention away from you.
In this post, you’ll learn the simplest way to help prevent that from happening – Posting more diverse content. You’ll discover what to post on Instagram. I’ll also share with you 15 content ideas that work particularly well on the social media platform.
So, let’s begin.
#1. Showcase Your Brand’s Personality with Behind-the-Scenes Photos and Videos
Instagram users follow brands on Instagram and find them creative, entertaining, and relevant.
The above data also suggests that users want to connect with their favorite brands. Posting regular content – posts and Instagram stories – is a great way to build such a connection, of course.
But another thing you can do is give your audience a sneak peek behind the curtain. One of the best ways to showcase your brand personality is by showing what happens behind the scenes – How you work, your team’s interactions, and more.
For example, I love how this brand showcases all the work that goes into creating their cupcakes. Note how simple yet striking the video is. It immediately connects with a person watching it, doesn’t it?
Source: @loveliecakes
#2. Poll Your Audience
You know, sometimes the easiest way to engage your audience is by asking for their opinion. We all love to share our thoughts or ideas on subjects that interest us, after all, right?
Therefore, polls are another content type you could post on Instagram to boost engagement and get valuable feedback from your audience.
You can ask your audience anything, of course. But I recommend that you use polls to get ideas on:
- Options for a new product you’re developing, for example. It could be the best color or size or any other product feature that you’re not 100% sure of.
- Ideas for an event, be it online or off.
- New content ideas. Your poll doesn’t have to focus on Instagram content only, by the way. You could ask the audience for blog post ideas or any other content marketing asset you want to create. Your audience could quickly tell you what information they lack and what advice they’d like to get from you.
To poll your audience, ask users a question and give them two or three answers to choose from. You could make those a part of an image you’re sharing and ask them to state their choice in the comments.
#3. Hi-Five Your Audience by Reposting Their Content
This is a simple content type to post as it doesn’t require you to create anything new. Instead, you can repost something that a fan or follower has shared on their account.
Preferably, the regrammed content should relate to your brand or products, of course. This way, your repost will make sense and be relevant to your other followers too.
Now, it’s impossible to track all your followers’ content, of course. So, set up a social media tracking system to monitor for mentions of your brand or product. This way, you’ll quickly notice if anyone in your audience posts something about your brand.
#4. Create Tutorial Posts or Videos
Many of your followers don’t have much experience with your products yet. Some of those people might not even own what you sell. They’re interested in it; however, they mightn’t have finally realized how they could fully use your products.
Posting tutorial posts or, better yet, videos is your chance at showing them the full benefits of a product.
#5. Motivate Your Audience with Inspiring Quotes
Quotes work incredibly well on Instagram.
First, they are highly engaging.
Second, quote images often go viral.
There are many reasons why this type of content works so well. The main one, however, is that we all love motivational quotes. Such quotes are often witty and relatable to everyone, bringing much-needed inspiration.
The best part, you can share different types of motivational quotes on Instagram. You can share quotes by well-known figures, post advice from you or the team, take excerpts from your content and turn them into quote images, share testimonials, and more.
#6. Publish User-generated Content
User-generated content (UGC for short) is any content created by a brand’s customers and made available to its other followers. Common UGC content types include reviews, testimonials, case studies that brands publish on their website.
However, there are many options to publish UGC on social media too. And when it comes to Instagram, the opportunities are practically endless.
Take Starbucks, for example. The brand runs a contest dedicated to generating UGC photos with its products.
Many brands conduct similar campaigns, and there’s a good reason for that.
You see, for the user-generated content to work, you need to provide your audience with a strong direction. This way, you’ll help them realize what content you’d like to post on Instagram.
#7. Promote Your Recent Blog Posts and Other Content
I’d imagine that posting to Instagram isn’t the only content strategy you use. I’d wager that you publish a wealth of other content marketing assets – blog posts, guides, tutorials, long-form content, and more.
You could, and even should, promote them on Instagram and expand the content types you use to engage your audience in the process.
Post excerpts from the content in captions. Or turn those into visuals that will stand out in your audience’s Instagram feed.
#8. Create a Brand Cooperation Campaign
Brand collaboration happens when two or more brands form a partnership for mutual benefit.
Naturally, expanding what you can post to Instagram is not its primary purpose. However, as a result of brand collaboration, you can end up with a lot of new content to share with your audience.
#9. Post Something Funny
Humor is one of the most effective Instagram post ideas to engage the audience. It’s also not restricted to a specific content type. Your funny post can be a video, a picture, a carousel, and much more.
The most important thing to remember when creating humorous posts is that they reflect your audience’s values. Otherwise, your content might not entertain the audience and might even offend some of those people.
My best advice for playing it safe is that if you want to make fun of someone, make it to be you.
#10. Share Podcast Episodes
If your brand is running a podcast, then every show episode you publish is an opportunity to engage the audience on Instagram too.
But I agree that the social network does not immediately come to mind when promoting podcasts. Instagram is visual, while podcasts contain audio, after all. That said, you can promote each episode to your followers in many ways.
One is to use what’s known as audiograms – snippets from your podcast shows. They look like this:
Note a lovely audio wave that animates while the sound is playing.
But audiograms are just one way to promote a podcast on Instagram. You can simply share your show’s visual, along with a text snippet and a link to the latest episode.
#11. Show Product in Action
We’ve talked about publishing tutorials on Instagram already. However, you may not want to create such content but would still like to promote the product. The other option, then, is to showcase it in action simply. Even a simple image of a product being used (or even made) can spring the audience’s imagination and get them excited about it.
#12. Create a Giveaway
Let’s face it; contests and giveaways engage Instagram users like nothing else.
People love to win stuff, after all. And if the giveaway is also fun to enter, then that’s even more, the fun.
As part of this strategy, you can run a simple photo contest or offer a giveaway of a product in return for users performing some action.
#13. Share Live Video
Did you know that people spend eight times longer watching live video than on-demand clips?
Yup, it’s true.
Instagram Live gives you the option to create live broadcasts on the social platform. You can use it to stream your video, interact with the audience, and attract new followers.
Pro Tip: If you’re not comfortable with going live, though, consider creating Boomerangs – looping GIF-style videos based on your photos.
#14. Answer Followers’ Questions
Think of this content idea as real-time FAQs, where you allow followers to submit questions and get answers directly from you. You could also merge this idea with live video and broadcast answers to followers questions on IGTV, just like Conde Nast Traveller did here:
#15. Ask for Suggestions
Finally, if you’re ever stuck with what to post on Instagram, here’s a quick solution – Ask your followers what they’d like to see.
Use Instagram question sticker to ask for content recommendations, the advice they’d like from you, or even general suggestions about your channel.
And there you have it…
Fifteen ideas on what to post on Instagram if you’re ever stuck or need the inspiration to take your audience engagement further in the coming months.
What’s left now is to start planning your Instagram calendar and creating all this content.
Good luck!
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