50 Instagram Post Ideas to Engage Your Audience

Engaging your audience on Instagram is the key to continued growth, but it’s not always easy to continuously develop new and interesting post ideas. We’ve curated this list of dozens of Instagram post ideas to inspire you, such as:

Hosting a live Q&A session
Sharing creative product displays
Sharing reviews and testimonials from your customers
Highlighting a team member of the week or month
Promoting upcoming events or product launches
Sharing industry tips
Sharing memes or GIFs
…and more

Building an Instagram content calendar is an excellent way to stay on track with a posting schedule and ensure that you include various post types. However, after posting for a while on the platform, you might find it challenging to come up with fresh content ideas for your feed.

Here, we offer 50 Instagram post ideas to inspire your future content. We’ve broken this list down into a few categories of post ideas for different purposes to make it easier to find what you need:

Instagram Post Ideas for Brand Awareness
Instagram Post Ideas for Engagement
Instagram Post Ideas for Virality
Other Instagram Post Ideas

Instagram Post Ideas for Brand Awareness

Screenshot from @oreo via Instagram

1. Create behind-the-scenes posts: Share what it’s like to work at your company or be a business owner by creating a multi-image carousel post with candids from the workplace. These posts allow your audience to learn more about your company and its culture on a deeper level.

2. Go live with a Q&A: Use Instagram Live to chat with your audience. Request that they send in questions for you in the comments or post a Question sticker in an Instagram Story, and try to answer as many as you can during the Q&A. Come prepared with a few frequently asked questions to start with as you wait for people to join and comment.

3. Share a product tutorial: Share an Instagram Reel or Story showcasing the steps needed to make your product or service work. Try to keep it engaging and no longer than 1-2 minutes, ensuring that the first three seconds tell the audience exactly what they’ll be watching.

4. Make a ‘thank-you’ post: Let your followers know that you appreciate their likes, comments, shares, and follows with a simple thank-you post. Make a quick graphic or use Reels to share your thanks more intimately.

5. Answer questions in a Story: Answering your audience’s questions in your Story is an ideal way to show that you read through comments and are dedicated to building a community, which could trigger more engagement. It also helps prove your authority by answering industry-related questions using your expertise.

6. Run a giveaway: Instagram giveaways serve a dual purpose: to increase brand awareness and boost engagement. People can learn more about your brand and what you offer when they come across your giveaway, while comments and likes for entries can help the post’s engagement.

7. Show a creative product display: Post photos of a creative product display that’s sure to catch the attention of your audience.

8. Show off your year: Share a carousel post or Instagram Reel slideshow with highlights from the past year, such as awards, events you attended, and milestones you celebrated.

9. Share industry tips: Give your audience a glimpse of your expertise by sharing tips related to your industry. You might share a piece of knowledge others outside your industry typically don’t know or debunk myths about your industry.

10. Show off influencer content: Do influencers post about your products or services? If so, contact them to get permission to share their content on your feed or in your Story. This can show others how people use and engage with your products.

11. Share product reviews: Create graphics for a carousel post showcasing screenshots of product reviews from your website or testimonials from happy clients.

12. Share clips from a video or podcast: Let others know about your video or podcast by sharing video or audio clips or images from a recent recording. Be sure to use the caption to talk about your other channel, and leave a link to your recording in your bio to make it easy for Instagram users to find.

13. Make a save-the-date post: Tell your followers to save a special date for an event, upcoming promotion, or another important milestone for your business. They’ll be inspired to return on that date to see what you have in store.

14. Explain product features and benefits: In a video or carousel post, highlight a specific feature or multiple features of your product or service and how it can benefit those who use it.

15. Spotlight a team member: Shine the spotlight on a deserving team member once a month. Share a photo of them, what their position is, and a few reasons you want to recognize their achievements. You can find a variety of templates for highlighting employees to make it easy, or create a custom template with your company branding for consistency month after month.

16. Snap a selfie: Show your audience who’s behind your business by sharing a selfie or an image of yourself from a photo shoot that captures your personality. Add a caption with a short biography, your business’s mission, or a few fun facts about yourself or your business.

17. Share photos and video from events: Make a highlight reel or share photos and videos from events your business has hosted or participated in. This is a good way to include some more behind-the-scenes shots of your company and team.

18. Highlight a before-and-after: Share a split-screen before-and-after image to help your audience visualize how your product or service can help them reach their goals.

19. Announce a launch: Use an Instagram post to let your audience know about an upcoming product or service launch. Include the date and other details in an eye-catching graphic.

20. Show off your skills: What skills can you show off in an Instagram video or image post that will give others a glimpse into your expertise? Or, share a post about a fun on-the-side hobby you have.

21. Share a promotion: Release a promo code or special sale for your followers to enjoy and encourage them to tag others to let them know about the deal, too.

22. Answer a FAQ: Look through your Instagram comments or emails to find questions you get asked about your business or industry regularly. Then, make a quick video answering the question or create a carousel post that dives into the answer. There’s also a Frequently Asked Questions feature you can implement for direct messages.

23. Share your Throwback Thursday: Post a photo of yourself, your team, or your workplace from one or more years ago to participate in Throwback Thursday. Be sure to use the #ThrowbackThursday hashtag, too.

24. Promote a freebie in a Story: Do you have a free guide, eBook, or another resource you use as a lead magnet? Share a link to it in your Story, along with a few other sides that let viewers know about your business and offerings.

Instagram Post Ideas for Engagement

Screenshot from @shakeshack via Instagram

25. Make a question post: Use Canva or another photo-editing app to make a quick graphic with a question for your followers. Adding a question straight to your post rather than in the caption can encourage more engagement in the comments.

26. Share a comment in a new post: Does your audience leave comments on your posts that could be helpful or entertaining to others? Occasionally, highlight a stand-out comment in a new graphic post. Others will be inspired to leave comments, too, for the potential to be included.

27. Ask for advice: Perhaps you’re looking to change your branding or get some feedback on an upcoming product. Create a post including a few options for your audience to vote on with a comment, which can quickly boost engagement via Instagram’s algorithm.

28. Create a post around a caption: Write a story your audience can relate to in an Instagram caption. Then, find or create the perfect video or image to represent your caption. Ensure that your caption has something for your audience to respond to, like a question or prompt.

29. Write a fill-in-the-blank: Use your favorite photo editing app to make a graphic post that includes a fill-in-the-blank sentence for your audience to complete. For instance, a pet insurance company might post, “My biggest concern about my pet’s wellness is ______.”

30. Start a prompt: Similar to a fill-in-the-blank post, a prompt leaves room for even more discussion, so it’s best to use when you want more detailed responses. The pet insurance company could make a post saying, “Tell us your pet’s adoption story” to prompt followers to comment and engage with one another.

31. Create a Story linking to blog content: Make a Story slide about a new blog post and use the link sticker to link to it. Encourage your audience to share their thoughts by commenting on your Story.

32. Post a series: Create a posting series targeting a specific theme. For example, a candy brand could release two posts each week for a month with recipes using its candy. Posting a series makes you post consistently and lets your audience know to expect more posts on a topic they’re interested in.

33. Make a poll: Your Story is the easiest place to share a poll with your followers because it already includes a poll sticker. Alternatively, you can make a graphic post with your poll options and have people comment with their responses.

34. Use stickers in a Story: Instagram Stories include lots of engagement-boosting stickers, like emoji sliders, quizzes, and questions, that viewers can respond to, making your content more interactive and fun.

35. Share your thoughts on current events: Are there current events happening that relate to your industry? Use your Instagram feed to share your thoughts or let your audience know. Or, ask them to tell you how a current event has impacted them.

Instagram Post Ideas for Virality

Screenshot from @letterlapse via Instagram

36. Share a meme: Because Instagram is image-based, memes have the power to go viral on the platform. Sharing an occasional meme related to your industry or primary content topics can be a good way to get more eyes on your feed.

37. Follow a Reels trend: Latch onto an existing Reels trend to piggyback on its virality. Look at your Explore page to see what’s currently trending and gain inspiration.

38. Create a challenge: Creators of challenges can get links back to their accounts as credit from other creators, so being the first to try something can be helpful in growing your account. See what other Reels or image challenges are trending and try to find another angle for a new challenge.

39. Share a helpful carousel post: Carousel posts can include up to 10 photos or video clips, making them ideal for sharing lots of helpful information that people share with others.

40. Create a holiday post: Holiday posts are current and can quickly pick up steam around their referenced holidays. Be sure to use some holiday-related hashtags in your caption or comment to attract more people who are looking for posts related to the special day.

41. Collab with an Instagram influencer: Share an influencer’s audience by posting a collaboration. The Collab feature lets you and your collaborator show the same content on both of your feeds, making it an ideal way to work on a sponsored campaign and boost each other’s audiences and engagement.

42. Make your own GIF: Use GIPHY to make your own GIF to add to your Instagram feed or Story.

43. Post a recipe: If it’s something your audience might be interested in, post an occasional recipe image or video to your account. Include the steps to make it in a comment or add a link in your bio to the recipe on your blog.

44. Make an infographic: Infographics can hold a lot of information in an appealing visual format to really catch the attention of an Instagram audience. Canva has lots of templates to help you get started with an infographic in-feed or carousel post.

45. Share a favorite quote: Quote posts do extremely well on Instagram, having the potential to go viral simply because they resonate with people. Find a quote you love, and be sure to give credit to its originator in your post.