20 Instagram post ideas to give your brand a boost

Managing an Instagram brand account isn’t easy. It’s an ongoing juggle of posting at the perfect time, engaging on the fly and coming up with new ideas to beat the algorithm. You don’t need to break what’s working for you, but if you’re needing a little extra inspiration to refresh your instagram marketing, it’s always a good idea to try out some new types of Instagram posts and Stories.

Below, we give you some fresh post ideas to try for your Instagram brand account. They cover the different types of content: in-feed, Stories, Live and IGTV. Some of these will be easy to implement while others will take some preplanning. The idea is to introduce new types of content to your account so your audience will keep up their active engagement.

1. Host an “ask me anything” (AMA) with an industry expert

Go beyond your brand and host a live AMA on Instagram Stories or Reels with an industry thought leader. This provides immense value to your audience and positions your brand as a central hub for industry knowledge.

Use Sprout’s Social Listening tools to identify trending topics and influential voices your audience already trusts. By understanding the conversations happening in your space, you can host an AMA that truly resonates and strengthens your market position with actionable intelligence.

2. Spotlight user-generated content (UGC) with a creative twist

Create a branded hashtag and encourage your followers to share their experiences with your product. Then, curate the best submissions into a carousel post, Reel or story highlight. This not only provides authentic social proof but also deepens your connection with your community.

Juggling disparate channels and multiple profiles is a heavy lift. Sprout’s Smart Inbox makes it easy to track mentions and UGC submissions in one centralized place. This allows you to engage with your brand advocates quickly, capturing and deepening customer loyalty.

3. Create a “day in the life” takeover

Hand over your Instagram account to a team member for a day. This behind-the-scenes content humanizes your brand and showcases your company culture. It’s a powerful way to build trust and improve your employer brand.

Worried about going off-brand? Sprout’s streamlined approval workflows give you complete control over what gets posted, even during a takeover. This allows you to empower your team and do more on social with ease, while protecting your brand health at the speed of social.

4. Share a data-driven infographic

Transform a compelling statistic or piece of data into a visually appealing infographic. This type of content is highly shareable and positions your brand as a knowledgeable leader. Use data from a recent case study, a customer survey, or an industry report.

With Sprout’s robust Instagram analytics, you don’t just report on metrics—you uncover business-critical insights that inform your entire strategy. Our intuitive reports make it easy to extract key business insights and tell a compelling story about your ROI that leadership can instantly understand

5. Run a “caption this” contest

Post an interesting, funny, or ambiguous photo and ask your followers to caption it in the comments. This is a simple yet highly effective way to boost engagement and interaction. Offer a small prize or a shout-out for the winning caption.

A “Caption This” contest can generate a high volume of comments. Sprout’s Engagement tools are thoughtfully designed to help your team manage conversations efficiently, so you never miss a beat.

6. Create a tutorial or how-to-reel

Short-form video is essential. Create a quick, valuable tutorial showing your audience how to do something, whether it’s using your product in a new way or solving a common industry problem.

Not sure what time to post your Instagram reel for maximum reach? Remove the guesswork with Sprout’s patented, AI-powered ViralPost® technology, which analyzes your audience’s engagement patterns to suggest the optimal time to publish. This is part of how we help you work smarter, not harder.

7. Before and after transformations

Showcase the impact of your product or service with a compelling before-and-after post. This could be a customer success story, a project your team completed, or a personal growth journey. This format is visually striking and clearly communicates value.

Use Sprout’s Analytics and Reporting to add hard data to your transformation stories. Showcase the “after” with metrics like a 56% increase in followers or a 1002% spike in engagements to prove undeniable Instagram ROI.

8. Bust common industry myths

Address a common misconception in your industry. This allows you to take a stand, demonstrate your expertise, and spark a conversation with your audience. Frame it as “Myth vs. Fact” in a carousel post or a short video.

Unsure which myths to bust? Use Sprout’s Social Listening to uncover the prevailing narratives and pain points within your industry. This allows you to ground your strategy in the voice of the customer and create content that truly educates and resonates.

9. Employee advocacy spotlight

Amplify your reach by featuring content created by your own employees. When employees share their expertise and passion, it comes across as more authentic and trustworthy than traditional corporate messaging.

Employee Advocacy by Sprout makes it easy to surface and share compelling content from your team, turning your employees into a powerful extension of your marketing efforts. This helps you save on paid media by extending your reach through earned media value.

10. Promote a lead magnet

Offer a valuable resource like an ebook, whitepaper, or webinar in exchange for an email address. Create a compelling post that highlights the benefits of the resource and direct users to a link in your bio to download it.

Connect Sprout Social with integrations like Salesforce to track how your social efforts are driving leads and revenue. This allows you to harness social to drive revenue and prove the business impact of your campaigns.

11. Go live with a partner brand

Co-host an Instagram Live with a complementary, non-competitive brand. This is a powerful way to cross-promote and expose your brand to a new, relevant audience. You could co-host a tutorial, an interview, or a Q and A session.

Collaboration across teams—and with external partners—is seamless with Sprout. Use our shared calendar and reporting tools to align on plans and measure the combined impact of your co-marketing efforts, ensuring everyone is working toward the same goals.

12. Give your audience a mind break with a puzzle

We’re often so busy in our lives, rushing from one thing to another that self-care routines can be relegated to the back burner. Instead of posting the usual photo, create one that makes your audience pause and think a little.

In Casper’s case, the mattress company is all about relaxation. So it makes sense for them to create posts that reflect this value. Using cute graphics and animation, the company posts puzzles in both their feed and Stories. There’s no prize for those who get the correct answer except self-satisfaction. But using the questions sticker in Stories and the gallery post in the feed, Casper creates ongoing engagement.

The designs are also similar to previous Stories they’ve done, so if you’ve seen it before, you know what to expect. This builds up brand recognition for the audience.

13. Take on a recurring challenge

This can be a daily, weekly or even monthly occurrence. It’s up to you on how often you want to tackle the challenge. To execute this, you’ll need to either look up pre-existing challenges or create one that makes sense for your brand.

For brands, you could also choose a challenge format that encourages your audience to participate and post their own take on the photo challenge. You can also use unique Instagram hashtags to further drive engagement with your challenge.

Creative Instagram content encourages engagement, sharing and saves—all important metrics for growing your reach with Instagram. Learn more about how to create a comprehensive Instagram marketing strategy with our guide.

14. Write a caption first, then find the photo

For brands with a distinctive voice, challenge yourself to write captions first, then find or create the photo to match it. You may find that it’s easier to map out your content when you know exactly what message or mood you want to evoke instead of writing a caption specifically to the photo provided.

It’s usually more words than the usual brand caption and both pithy and meandering in its tone. When your copywriting is strong, you can use that to create the photo to match it.

15. Combine a photo essay with a link in bio

In line with great captioned copywriting, we turn to the publishing industry for our next post idea. When your business is built on great content, be it photos, words or videos, it extends to your social media presence.

16. Add product teasers

Do you launch new products or services on Instagram? Instead of directly announcing a new product, use Stories and posts to drive interest. Build up anticipation through teaser photos, videos and question stickers.

Pressed Juicery used a photo of ingredients to tease their new drink, the Tumeric Almond Signature Blend. Since the teaser post gave a timeline of when to expect the announcement, it put a mental note in the audience’s mind to check back tomorrow for the release.

You don’t need to create mysterious posts to build up hype. To time with product releases, collaborate with influencers to talk about new features. In Stories, you can use the poll or question sticker to create engagement with your followers. Make it a guessing game and award a prize to the first correct responders.

17. Run a flash sale in Stories

Posting in Stories can be fleeting. After all, they disappear after 24 hours. Take advantage of this by using Stories for flash sales. In the retail world, flash sales can range from the anticipated (see our last idea about teasers) to the surprising. Either way, they’re short and drive a customer to purchase so they don’t miss out on the opportunity.

This account used Stories to announce an extra gift in the next 10 orders. If you were already thinking of ordering, the offer seals the deal for you to complete the order quickly.

This type of post could be applied for limited stock products, giveaways, or even a quick discount on something you don’t usually discount. It surprises the customer and makes them want to go through your Stories more often in case you offer another flash sale. Make flash sales a marketing tactic and you’ll see an increase in engagement in your Stories analytics.

18. Interview on Stories

This is a spin on the social media takeover concept and a good idea for those who are hesitant at handing the virtual account keys over to a stranger. Use Stories to conduct Q&A interviews with guests. Add an extra layer of engagement to the Q&A by asking your followers for questions and answering them in a new Story.

Domino Magazine used Stories to feature designers. It mixed content like a pre-created question Story with a casual video where they answered the question. This format continued for each question that they put into the Story. At the end of it, they asked followers who they thought would be a good interviewee for the next feature.

To build up anticipation for this, let followers know when to expect interviews to be posted and who you’ll be interviewing. You can also mix it up by live broadcasting it with the question sticker.

19. Broadcast instructional Live videos

There are so many ways to approach a Live video and it’s really up to you on what the best fit is for your brand. The most common Live video approaches include broadcasting events and conducting interviews. Change up expectations by doing an instructional Live video. The interactive how-to video allows you to answer questions from the answer, too.

Smitten Kitchen broadcasted the making of her Cacio e pepe recipe. In a feed post, she told her followers when to expect the Live broadcast so they knew it was coming. We see so many how-to videos already that it’s a nice change of pace to see an interactive one instead.

Make sure you have someone else behind the phone who can read through comments and questions. If you have an active account, a second person would come in very handy for moderation.

20. Add stickers to your posts

Hear us out: stickers and collages aren’t just for Stories. Adding some fun stickers and other graphic overlays to your feed posts make them stand out from the same old photos. This works well for brands that are visually colorful, fun and whimsical.

Stickers and overlays are a new trend on Instagram. They’re fun to play around with and if used correctly, will only enhance your images

Ready to bring these Instagram post ideas to life?

With the ever-changing Instagram algorithm, coming up with fresh Instagram post ideas can be a challenge. We hope these 20 post ideas offered some inspirations on what to try out for your brand. Between Stories, posts and IGTV, Instagram now offers a variety of content types. Don’t get locked into one type just because it’s what you’ve been doing.

With the help of tools such as Sprout, you can easily manage the many moving pieces of your brand’s Instagram strategy. Start a free 30-day trial today.

Instagram Post Ideas FAQs

What's more important: Reels, Stories, or Feed posts?

A successful Instagram strategy doesn’t choose between formats; it uses them in concert. Each format serves a different purpose:

Reels are ideal for broad reach and attracting new followers.
Stories are perfect for timely, interactive engagement with your current audience.
Feed Posts serve as the evergreen foundation of your brand’s profile.

Juggling these can be a heavy lift, which is why a centralized platform is crucial. Sprout Social is designed to help you streamline workflows by letting you plan, schedule, and publish all content formats from a single, intuitive platform. You can even plan brand and influencer content together in one shared publishing calendar, ensuring your entire strategy is cohesive and manageable.