14 Awesome Instagram Post Ideas for Small Business

No matter whichever hacks and tips you try out, you won’t be able to grow the Instagram account for your small business consistently if you don’t have engaging content. Adam Mosseri, the Director of Instagram shared that Instagram is not just a “photo-sharing app”. This clearly tells us that Instagram is now evolving as a content sharing platform where along with photos, it also has started focussing on video content.

So now apart from just understanding “what your audience wants”, you also need to understand what kind of posts are trending on Instagram and which forms of content are the best way to reach out to your audience. And that’s the exact reason we have come up with these 14 Instagram post ideas for small businesses. Now keep this as the bible whenever you schedule your Instagram Content calendar

And let’s start with our list:

1.Tips and Tutorials

If you are planning to sell a product/service for your Small business there will obviously be a skill you are good at compared to the others. So time to share that skill with your audience in Instagram. Tips and tutorials are the best way to reach out to your audience.

Tips can be in the form of text posts or videos where you tell your audience how to do something or maybe precautions to take before doing something. It can be a Reel where you are jumping to a beat at the same time adding value or an IGTV where you are showing the process of building a product from scratch.

This way your audience will not only respect you for helping them out, but this will also boost your credibility as an expert in your profession.

2. Behind the Scenes

Your audience would love to get a glimpse of how does your daily routine look like, how have you arranged your workspace, where do you buy your raw materials from, the humans behind your small business or what are your hobbies apart from your business.

@brock11johnson is an IG Coach for small businesses but he shows the personal side of his life via stories such as his travel experiences, introducing family and friends, how he plans his Instagram schedule etc.

So show a sneak peek to your audience by showing them how your life looks like behind the screen. Give a visual treat to your audience so that they are able to better connect with the human behind the brand.

3. Meme posts

Running a small business on Instagram does not mean you have to keep things boring. Spice up your feed by adding few memes which are taken from movies/shows your audience watches and add dialogues that your audience can relate to.

But then before creating meme content, you need to understand the taste of your audience. Do they watch every new show that comes up on Netflix or do they watch content only from their regional languages? You need to have an answer to these questions, because if your audience is not able to understand the context shown in the meme, then they won’t be able to relate to it.

4. Poll questions/Quiz

Wanna understand the tastes and preferences of your Instagram followers or feel like having a casual chat with them? Then polls and quiz stickers are the best way to reach out to them.

Here @socialsam wants to have a casual conversation with her audience and has asked a generic question as to how they are planning to spend their Saturday.

5. Collaboration Live

Go on Live with other Instagram small businesses or influencers and reach out to their audience as well. You can collect common queries from your followers and then request an experienced person in that field to answer those questions by doing a Collab Live with you. This way you add value to your followers by answering their queries, you are letting the guest know what will be required of them in the Live, and you are also getting access to the followers of your guest. And that’s what we call a SUPER WIN situation for all.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/style/instagram-influencer-monetization-live-igtv.html

And you can add three other people to the Live sessions so you can also rope in 3 other people to conduct a fun discussion as well as to reach out a larger crowd.

6. Collaborate with influencers

Obviously, when your followers see that their celebrity idols are using your products, they will automatically develop a desire for your product. To collaborate with such Instagram influencers, request them to shoot a video or take pictures with the product and share that picture/videos in your account.

Sana Khader aka @zannist is a famous crafter, artist and influencer who endorses many brands and support small businesses.

7. Product/Service post

People would love to know more about your products or services. So in the case of products, you can show a video that depicts the look and feel of the product and in the Instagram post caption, you can mention the benefits of the product.

In the case of services, you can give a brief about your plans or how the service will help your audience to grow.

In the above post, @art_shed_ has highlighted the beauty of the product by setting a beautiful background which again shows her other embroidery hoop works.

8. Quotes

Want to make your feed look aesthetically pretty? Then instead of putting blank filler posts, add a nice quote. When adding quotes you should share the ones which will be relatable to your followers.

If many small businesses are following you, you can put up a quote about the hustle. If many women homepreneurs are following you, you can put a quote on women empowerment. Use Canva to create beautiful templates for your feed.

@mynames_ellen is a colourful page by Ellen Hope who is a graphic designer. She depicts her work by sharing cute and creative tip posts as well as quotes. And the engagement for her posts shows that people truly love her works.

9. Announcement Posts

Announce your new products or services. Talk about the benefits and mention why people should buy that product/service. To add a little drama, you can put a countdown timer, to create suspense and excitement among your audience.

This is how @creators, the official Instagram community for Creators, reveal the launch of Reel Insights.

10. Following Trends

Create your brand’s version of the fun challenges or trends going on. Be it using trending memes or creating posts on “10-year challenge”, etc. keep in mind that you should connect it to your brand as well as your audience so that the post is a hit and not create something really random and out of the blue.

While creating Reels, you must trend music as it helps you to reach a larger crowd, because Instagram tends to show the Reels to all the people who are watching other Reels with the same music.

11. Participate in or conduct Challenges

You can run contests where you share prompts and ask other Instagram creators to make creations based on the prompt and you will repost the best ones on your feed. This will not only help you to post more content on your page, but you also get more publicity as more people are talking about your page and prompt. It can be anything like an easy recipe, and artwork based on a theme etc.

In the above challenge conducted by @thefairytale and @lakshkara__, they have clearly mentioned the rules of the challenge, the hashtag they are using and also the people who are a part of it. This way if others are interested, they can also use the same hashtag and join with them for the challenge.

12. Share Insights, Learnings and mistakes

Sometimes you might be out of orders or product pictures. So you can learn a new technique/skill related to your niche and share your learnings with your Instagram followers. In the caption, you can specify the challenges you faced, the mistakes you made, and the final result. Give a few takeaways for your audience from this learning.

These insights and learnings can be in the form of stories, reels or posts as well. As you can see here, we have shared a detailed insight as to what is working for us and what is not working. And by the way, these stories have been very engaging as many people reply to the stories giving their ideas, asking doubts etc.

13. Share work of others

Share the content of others, tag their Instagram account and mention why this post inspired you, how has the account helped you grow, and why should your audience check this out. This way you are helping your audience find out new content creators as well. At the same time, you are engaging and building bonds with another account by sharing their content.

14. Testimonials

Keep sharing all messages, audio texts, unboxing videos that you received from your customers with your Instagram community. Showing such videos and messages boost your brand credibility and increases the trust of your audience in your business.

This is a story shared by @zysdreambox, where we can clearly see the customer’s excitement on seeing this product.

POSTS VS. STORIES VS. REELS – When to use them?

Now the confusion is are all the above Instagram post ideas applicable for all forms of Instagram content such as Feed Posts, Stories and Reels? NOPE.

You also need to understand what kind of audience you are reaching out to with each form of content.

With Instagram Feed Posts, your target audience is the people who see your posts in their feed, explore section and suggestions. They can be your followers, people who have seen your account before or random people as well. So the content should be keeping in mind an outside audience who maybe does not know you but likes to see similar kinds of products/posts.

With Instagram stories, your target audience is YOUR followers only. So you can use a very friendly and personal tone and assume people know you and your work. You can refer to previous stories, you can share a glimpse of your personal trips, hobbies etc. This is the best place to humanize your brand.

Now with Reels, you have a chance to reach a large crowd who might have no clue about your business. So, create content in such a way that new people are attracted to your work and understand what you are talking about. Also, people watch Reels for fun so let the content be Infotainment.

Time to start implementing these Instagram post ideas and you will soon find your Instagram insights skyrocketing in a positive direction.