One of the questions we get most often is what to post on Instagram as a creative entrepreneur. We have over 2,500 images in the Styled Stock Society member library, but sometimes people still get stumped on how to caption their images or what they should even be sharing on Instagram. If you’re new to using Instagram for your business, it can be a bit overwhelming, but don’t let not knowing what to post on Instagram hold you back from connecting with potential clients and customers!
Fun fact: before I started the Styled Stock Society, I used to teach courses on Instagram. After working in social media for years and growing one of my own Instagram accounts to over 100,000 followers in just a few years, I know a thing or two about how to leverage this platform for your business.
Knowing what to post on Instagram doesn’t have to be hard – but don’t forget that if you’re using Instagram for your business, you should be connecting with potential clients or customers! That means that you’re trying to build that know / like / trust factor with your followers that allows them to get to know more about you and your business and ultimately buy from you.
Share Your Story
People follow you on Instagram because they want to know more about YOU! It can seem silly or awkward to share photos of yourself or tell people things about you that seem basic or not that interesting – but I promise that people want to know more about you! People connect with people, but they can’t connect with you unless you share YOUR story. Tell people what you do, how you got to where you are today, what you’re working on, what keeps you up at night, what you would do if you had $1,000,000 – honestly, the possibilities are endless! The important thing is to share the things that are unique to your story as well as the things that can help your audience get to know YOU better!
Take People Behind the Scenes
It’s easy to show people the “final product” but taking them behind the scenes can really help your audience to connect with you on a deeper level. You can share your office/workspace (or if it’s a disaster area, use a Styled Stock Society image to share what you WISH your workspace looked like), share a behind the scenes peek at your process, share photos of your team, or share what a typical day in your life is like as a creative entrepreneur.
Quick tip: If you’re picky about what you share in your posts, use Instagram stories as a way to share a less curated image of what things might “really” look like behind the scenes!
Show How You Can Help
Whenever people ask what to post on Instagram, I always tell them – don’t forget that just because someone follows you on Instagram, that doesn’t mean that they necessarily know what you do! Periodically remind people about what services you offer / what you sell / and who you serve. People can’t hire you or buy your products if they don’t know how you can help them so make sure that they know!
You should definitely include a line in your Instagram profile bio that tells people what you do, but you should also be sharing about your business through your posts so that people can see how you can help them. This means showing examples of your work or telling stories about how you’ve helped your clients in the past or sharing photos of your products AND telling people how they can benefit their lives. You don’t need to “sell” in every post, but make sure people know what it is that you have to offer!
Feature Your Clients / Customers
Take things a step further and feature your clients or customers so that your Instagram followers can see actual people who have benefitted from working with you or making a purchase from your business. If you offer a service, you can share examples of your work for clients or testimonials from your clients so that your Instagram followers can get a sense of who you’ve worked for in the past and see how you have helped them. If you sell a product, you can share customer images (with permission, of course!) so that your followers can see how people are actually using your products in real life.
Promote Your Content
As a creative entrepreneur, you are probably creating a lot of different types of content. Instagram can be a great place to share your content from other places – so if you are publishing blog posts, recording podcast episodes, creating Youtube videos, doing Facebook lives, sending email newsletters, or creating any other types of content, you can share previews/snippets/excerpts from these with your followers on Instagram as well. Don’t assume that just because someone follows you on Instagram that they also read your blog or listen to your podcast or subscribe to your newsletter – Instagram can be a great way to repurpose content and to also promote your other channels!
Quick tip: make sure that it’s easy for your Instagram followers to find the “full version” of the posts/videos/podcasts / etc. that you share. Create easy to type bit.ly links or optimize the link in your bio to tell people where to go.
Engage Your Audience
The best thing about Instagram (in our humble opinion) is that it allows you to engage with your audience on a regular basis! People want to connect with you but you have to give them something to connect with if you want them to engage. The easiest way to do this is just by sharing your thoughts on something and then asking questions. For example, maybe you share that you struggle with productivity and the different things you’ve tried in order to be more productive, then ask your followers for their best productivity tips. Or you can keep things simple and ask “this or that” or “what’s your favorite” type questions to give your followers an easy way to engage with you.
Remember that Instagram is a social platform, so give people a reason to socialize with you! If you’re just talking “at” your followers and not asking them to engage with you, you are going to have a harder time getting more comments!
Start a Series
Starting a series can be a great way to plan your Instagram content in advance as well as get your followers looking excited about the things that you plan to share. For example, every Tuesday, we share a #tuesdaytip in our Instagram stories. We pull quotes from our blog posts and other content and repurpose it for these weekly Instagram series which saves a ton of time since we don’t have to come up with new post ideas! And on Thursdays we ask questions / poll our audience to learn more about them. You could also do something like #saturdayshoutout where you shout out other creative entrepreneurs or people you admire or something like #selfcaresunday where you show how you are treating yourself before a busy work week.
Run a Promotion
If you want to get more eyes on your products, grow your Instagram following, or get more people to engage with your brand, consider running a promotion! There are a ton of different ways to do this – for example, you could run a limited time sale that you promote only to your Instagram followers where you would share a unique code or link with them to purchase. You could also run a giveaway and ask your followers to comment or tag a friend to enter to win. Ultimately, don’t forget that the point of running the promotion is that you want to reward your Instagram followers in some way!
Celebrate Special Occasions
Are special occasions really special if you don’t celebrate them?! Instagram is a great place to “celebrate” with your audience whether it’s your business anniversary, your birthday, your launch day, an actual national holiday, or one of the many “Instagram” holidays like National Coffee Day or National Pet Day.
Ask for Feedback
Last but not least, if you’re not sure what to post on Instagram, ask your followers what they want to see from you! This is an easy way to make sure that you’re creating content that resonates with them and it shows your followers that you actually care about connecting with them. You can also ask for feedback on your products/services or feedback on what your audience wants to see more of in your blog posts/videos/emails/etc. but the point is, Instagram makes it really easy for people to engage with you, so make sure you’re asking your audience how you can better help them.
So those are 10 ideas for what to post on Instagram as a creative entrepreneur to grow your following, your engagement, and your revenue. If you need more specific ideas on what to post on Instagram for your business, head grab our 12 Month Caption Guide!
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