16 Instagram Post Ideas For When You Feel Stuck
Do you ever worry about your current marketing strategy for Instagram? Do you feel as though the content you post gets stale pretty fast?
Instagram is a unique platform in that it primarily revolves around different forms of visual content, from images and slideshows to video clips.
In this post, you’ll find over a dozen fresh Instagram post ideas you can use to get your marketing strategy out of a rut.
Creative Instagram post ideas (with examples)
1. Share your thoughts and experiences in real time
A content format popularized by the internet is watching someone’s reaction to something, be it a viral video, a video game, a movie or even food items.
Even your niche has new and popular products and various pieces of media you can react to. For example, the video game niche has video games, trailers for video game adaptations, and products that are marketed to gamers.
But because everyone posts reaction videos, it’s best to take a more unique approach when uploading your own.
So, instead of posting a single video or image of you reacting to something, post several of you reacting to it in real time. Take your followers on a journey.
This is something influencer @kierra_lewis1 has become popular for. She posts videos of herself reacting to Harry Potter as she reads the book series for the first time.
But she doesn’t simply post one video about each book or even a single review about each book. She posts several videos per book that depict her reactions to different moments as she reads them as well as her theories on what’s to come.
Her content is primarily popular on TikTok, but she also posts to Instagram where she’s earned 661,000 followers and receives tens of thousands of likes per post.
2. Share moments from your daily life
Whether you’re a brand or professional figure or you post casual content, you still live your life day by day just like anyone else. And like anyone else, you have your moments, whether they’re happy, sad, inspiring or funny.
Consider sharing some of these moments with the world through your Instagram feed.
That’s what Chris has done with his beloved golden retriever Nala in this example from their Instagram account @adventuringwithnala.
Chris and Nala became popular on TikTok for “Nala stomps,” a dance Nala does in which she marches in place with her back feet.
Chris shares many of his adventures and moments with Nala, including this Instagram post which depicts Nala becoming quite hyperactive after having her cone removed.
3. Post a skit related to your niche
Standup comedy is great as are funny movies and TV shows. Unfortunately, these mediums often depict scenarios we all can relate to.
This leaves a lot of potential to make funny content out of lesser known topics.
If you want to get recognized in your niche, consider creating comedic content only other members of your niche would understand.
That’s what @jourdangames is doing in this skit she posted to Instagram.
It’s a skit about the video game Stardew Valley, and even as short as the skit is, it still accurately depicts something a good chunk of players have come across: a non-playable character (NPC) named Clint peeping on another NPC named Emily.
This skit earned Jourdan 66,000 likes, which is pretty decent for an account that had 51,000 followers at the time.
4. Share your expertise
If you have a lot of knowledge about a particular subject, consider sharing that expertise by creating engaging content for social media.
This is something @hankgreen does with his content.
Hank and his brother John Green are no strangers to social media. Their YouTube channel Vlog Brothers was one the first YouTube channels to ever post content regularly, which led to them creating the popular VidCon media convention exclusively for social media creators.
When TikTok emerged, Hank found a new following by sharing his science expertise with the world.
He answers questions people have, but his best content involves him reacting to a phenomenon, a conspiracy theory someone claims or a misunderstanding of some kind.
That’s what he’s doing in this example post. He’s reacting to a sarcastic post made by a woman who has doubts about the reality of the Apollo rocket making it to the moon.
The post received 2.6 million views and 122,000 likes even though many of Hank’s Instagram reels receive a few hundred thousand views.
5. Post recipes that have a specific theme
The food niche is older than the internet. Even before cooking shows aired on public access television channels, individual cookbooks often became popular in specific regions as did individual food items.
What we’re getting at is that if you want to make it in the food niche these days, you need a gimmick.
Try coming up with a theme for your recipes and only posting recipes that relate to that theme.
That’s what @bdylanhollis does with his recipe videos.
In this particular post, he’s making a recipe for whoopie pies from a cookbook that was published in 1947.
This is a theme he follows in almost all of his recipe videos: making baked goods out of recipes that are quite old, usually from the Great Depression and WWII eras.
This content has earned him over 10 million followers on TikTok as well as an additional 1 million on Instagram.
This particular post received over 100,000 likes on Instagram.
6. Share media appearances
Influencers receive more viewers than many traditional media channels do, but it’s still exciting to be recognized by certain media organizations.
If you or your content appears in the media, be sure to share it with your audience!
That’s what “Austrian mountain guy” @peter_mai_ did with his interview on Good Morning America.
Peter’s infectious positivity as well as the precarious situations he gets himself into while hiking in the Austrian Alps got him recognized, not only by the TikTok algorithm, but also by the popular media organization.
So, he shared the clips on his Instagram account.
7. Give a tour of a place you’re visiting
You may not be a travel vlogger, but that doesn’t mean you can’t share the exciting, and maybe not so exciting, places you visit with your audience.
Trust your gut. If you think a location is beautiful or interesting, chances are your audience will as well.
So, the next time you visit somewhere new and exciting, consider sharing it with your audience.
Should it be related to your niche? That depends on you. If you don’t normally post personal content to your Instagram account, your audience might find it offputting.
However, if you’re a little more candid with your content, you’ll probably maintain their interest.
This is something @liviemaher does on her Instagram account.
Olivia is the creator of the TikTok trend “girl dinner.” She’s also the sister of American rugby player and Olympic medalist Ilona Maher.
She often travels and makes content with her sister.
In this example post, she’s showcasing The Pig hotels in the Cotswolds in England during her sister’s season with the Bristol Bears in the Premiere Women’s Rugby league.
8. Include loved ones and colleagues in your content
Don’t forget the “social” part of social media while you come up with new ideas for Instagram content.
Genuine friendships and loving relationships are infectious even on the screen, so if there’s someone in your life you can include in your content, do so!
This includes friends and family if you make personal content as well as colleagues if you tend to stick to your niche.
This is something @tiniyounger does on her Instagram account.
Tini is a chef who competed on Gordan Ramsey’s Next Level Chef and has gained a following of over 10 million on TikTok.
She posts recipes to TikTok, including a mac and cheese bake that’s become a popular side dish for American Thanksgiving, and often has her husband try her dishes.
In this particular post, she shares her husband attempting to make one of her recipes by following one of her videos.
9. Post exciting moments from normal adventures
You likely have a routine you follow in your day to day adventures in whatever niche you’re a part of, but not everything goes according to plan.
Accidents and unexpected events will occur, and chances are, you’ll be recording or have your phone ready when they do.
Consider sharing these moments with your audience. They may be the thing that finally gets your content recognized by the algorithm.
This is another example we’re going to share from @peter_mai_.
In this post, Peter shares a giddy yet tense moment while standing on a frozen lake.
While shuffling his feet along the ice in a playful manner, he hears a crack underneath him and quickly tries to shuffle his way back to land.
The post became quite popular on Instagram, earning him over 31 million views and 2.2 million likes from an account that had 483,000 followers at the time.
10. Roleplay
Most of the time, skits are funny and are meant to depict funny scenarios related to your niche.
However, you can breathe new life into your social media presence by roleplaying in a way that places your viewer in a first-person point of view (POV) and has you speak to them directly.
You can be funny while roleplaying, serious, comforting or even sexy.
This is something @quincystavern often does in his content.
Most of his content involves him posting recipes that represent food items you’d find in a medieval tavern.
However, he also regularly dresses up in medieval clothing and posts roleplaying skits in which you’re a hero taking a break at the local tavern during an adventure and he’s a friendly barkeeper sharing information and providing food, beverages and useful items to you.
11. Share a resource image for your niche
Some problems don’t require videos or audio-based instructions at all. They require a simple image that includes an answer to every question related to the problem you’re solving.
That’s what @facescanada did in this post.
It’s a simple image with six grids, each one featuring a different eyeshadow look with text depicting where the company recommends wearing each look.
Followers can save the image to their phones for future reference. For this reason, it’s probably best to leave a watermark somewhere that features your Instagram handle so they remember where the image came from.
12. Give your pets a personality and voice
Influencers have gotten really creative with pet content these days.
Long gone are the days of lolcat memes that depict an image of a cat with a funny text overlay on top of it.
Today, people make all kinds of content with their pets. It may be as simple as sharing videos and images of their pets set to music, sharing a slideshow where each slide includes text of what the pet is “saying,” or even an AI voiceover that gives the animal a personality.
That’s what the creators behind @good.boy.ollie do.
The account only focused on a chocolate lab named Ollie for a time until the couple who own Ollie adopted a second lab named Tato.
Videos depicting Ollie having an “emotional support pumpkin” went viral a few years back. Now, hundreds of thousands of viewers tune in to see what else the pair of labs get up to.
This particular post features a common series: Ollie and Tato completing an activity from an activity jar.
13. Share yourself experiencing another culture
This is one of those topics you can post every once in a while or create entire social media accounts for.
Again, if it’s not related to your niche, you’ll need to use your best judgement to determine if your target audience would enjoy content like this.
That content is you sharing a moment from your personal life. Specifically, you reacting to something from another culture, whether it’s a place, an activity, music or food.
That’s what @joshandjase does regularly.
This account started on Josh’s personal TikTok account in which he, a British man, reacted to different things from America quite enthusiastically.
He decided to travel to the United States to experience the culture first hand and invited his friend Jase along for the ride. Thus, Josh and Jase was born.
In this post, the pair are reacting to a common food item you’ll often find at parties in America: deviled eggs.
14. Post collections or a list of resources related to your niche
This is similar to the idea we gave on creating resource images that provide solutions for your audience.
This particular idea involves posting collections or a list of resources that belong to a specific category or, once again, solve a specific problem.
The difference is you aren’t providing direct solutions. You’re providing a list of resources for things that may have solutions.
This is what @cozy.games has done with some of her Instagram posts, including the one we’re providing as an example.
In this post, she shares a list of “cozy” games that were released in the month prior to when she uploaded this post.
The topic is inline with the type of gaming content she produces, and it’s a quick way for her followers to learn about a few games they likely haven’t heard of.
If she posts this type of content regularly, she may even earn new followers from it.
15. Post fun makeup challenges
Certain types of content are quite popular in specific niches.
For example, let’s plays are popular in the gaming niche and shopping hauls are popular in all niches.
In the beauty niche, makeup tutorials have become very popular. There’s even a common style of video where an influencer will be telling a story or sharing advice while they apply their makeup for the day or an event.
That’s why @katiefarhood uses a different creative process for her content.
In this post, she’s challenging herself to a makeup challenge by using Christmas filters to determine what to put on different parts of her face, which turned out to be bows on her eyebrows, red eyeshadow around her eyes, a candy cane pattern for eyeliner, snowflakes across her nose and cheeks, and a wreath for her lips.
The post received over 190,000 views when the majority of her reels receive around 30-40,000 views each.
16. Use carousels for step-by-step tutorials
We suggested a lot of great Instagram post ideas with examples that were posted as Instagram reels, but carousel posts are fantastic for engagement as well.
Most influencers use carousels to post multiple images from a single day or event, which is a fantastic way to share a lot of content at once without flooding your followers’ Instagram feeds.
You can also make each image an Instagram story, but carousels are much more likely to be shared to other Instagram users.
Our example comes from an account called @honey__drops.
In their post, they’ve used a carousel to post step-by-step instructions on how to paint or draw better trees that have details, deeper tones and even shadows.
The post received over 20,000 likes, which is great for an account that had 54,000 followers at the time.
Final thoughts
Instagram’s algorithm is a difficult nut to crack but it’s worthwhile. After all, data shows that it’s one of the most popular social networks in the world.
The key is to keep on top of the latest trends. Look at what works but don’t just do the exact same as others. Experiment and find your own unique angle.
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