What to post on your Instagram if you’re a product-based business?

If you’re an ecommerce brand or an online boutique owner, I could bet $10 you are struggling to come up with ideas of what to post on your Instagram. I’d be willing to risk another $5 to bet that you’re not posting consistently as you run out of ideas and go through periods of ghosting social media altogether.

How do I know?

I work with dozens of business owners like this – hell, I’m one of those business owners too. We all know we should be marketing on social media regularly but who has the time for that? One thing I’ve found to be universally true for all my clients is that if it isn’t pre-planned, it’s not going to happen.

My process for creating social media content for my clients as well as my own brands is to plan is to batch-plan it. I’m not going to tell you how to plan a year’s worth of content in 3 hours because I don’t think it’s necessary and to be honest the very idea scares me. I plan Instagram content a month in advance using a 4×5 grid. 

I go into detail about my method for coming up with ideas and the types of content I plan in my free mini-course but the general rule is – Make sure every post provides value to your audience.

You can provide value in a few different ways, and I’m still experimenting with the most effective categories. The 4 that are more or less timeless are: aspirational, inspirational, educational and story.

Aspirational posts make your user feel like they want what you have or what your product can offer. Think glowing skin for a beauty brand, edgy look for a clothing brand etc etc.

Inspirational posts are pretty similar but they are meant to inspire your audience – make them feel something. On a most basic level these could be shareable quotes but also inspiring photos, videos etc.

Educational – this one is easy. You know your audience, you hear what questions they have around your niche and as the expert, you are perfectly positioned to give them the answers.

Story – this one is seeing a rise recently thanks to TikTok, which reminded us all how much humans are drawn to an interesting story. In many ways marketing is about telling good stories – whether that’s about you, your product, or something that you’re vaguely reminded of that has some kind of relevance to your niche.

I then fill out the columns making sure to come up with at least five ideas for each column. This leaves me with 20 posts, which is the perfect amount for a calendar month. I can, of course, come up with more and fill in all 30 days but it’s not necessary and coming up with 20 original ideas doesn’t feel as daunting.

For more ideas of what exactly to post each day, I’ve created this handy infographic for you with 20 post ideas ready for just about any ecommerce brand.

If you need more ways to add a link to your site from your Instagram content, this tool from Mobile Monkey offers 3 new options.