Instagram Post Ideas for Local Businesses

Business owners around the country have realized the power of Instagram and are actively utilizing it to reach their target audience and also to convert their audience into customers. Most of these businesses are local business owners who mainly focus on creating good content and building a virtual community. This shows how effective Instagram can be for local businesses if they know what to post, and if they are consistent about it.

While there are businesses that are reaping the rewards of a successful Instagram business account, there are also people who are stuck or overwhelmed about what they should publish next on their Instagram account. If the latter sounds like you then this article is all you need. We are going to look into various types of Instagram posts that a business can publish to increase awareness and drive results. 

1. Classic product posts

Product images and videos are the most common type of Instagram post that business owners start with. But the question is are you doing it right?

To grab the attention of your new customers the product images and videos you share should go beyond the ordinary. The content of the image/video and the caption should reflect a certain mood, an emotion combined with the personality of your brand to create a better connection with your audience. The below post by our client Seatsitters is a good example.

Pro Tip: Don’t push away your followers by making every single post about your product. Maintain a balance by mixing in other types of posts like the ones you will see below.

2. Product posts with product tags

Business accounts on Instagram with shopping features enabled can utilize product tags in their regular posts and product stickers in their stories to generate more sales. The reason this works so well in improving conversion rate is: most people don’t like to find products shown in an Instagram post by visiting links in the bio.

People want to see product information like its name and price right inside the Instagram app and checkout in a few clicks if it’s a good fit for them. Product tags allow you to add this nifty feature to all your posts. The best thing is you can add multiple tags to a single post as done by Ikea in the below screenshot.

3. Behind the scenes

BTS, short for behind-the-scenes, is a popular type of content on Instagram. It involves shooting videos and clicking images of the process like making a cake or making a music video. This unpolished version of things helps in building trust with the audience. One tip to get more eyeballs on such posts is to use hashtags like #bts #behindthescenes

In the below Instagram reels video, Filmup gives us a behind-the-scenes view of how they shot an enticing Coca-Cola B-roll.

4. User-generated content

User-generated content or UGC refers to content related to your product, service, or brand that other people publish on their own Instagram accounts. People love it when businesses re-post this type of content as it helps everyone become a part of a virtual community.

You can gather user-generated content by encouraging customers to use your brand’s hashtag or mention your business account when posting content related to your products or services. You can also search your brand hashtags to see if someone has already made a post with it and ask their permission to repost it.

Example: Bullet Journal posts a lot of UGC on their Instagram account. This has helped them grow their community as well as sales of their journal.

5. Introduce your team members

Instagram posts about the people working at your business do very well in terms of engagement. It shows the human side of your business and helps in building trust and an emotional connection with your audience.

So, in your next Instagram post, you can introduce existing or new employees at your business. You can also share photos of them working or talking about the next project. This will emphasize the human element involved at every step of your business offerings.

6. Run a giveaway/contest

Running contests and giveaways every once in a while can help you increase brand awareness in a short amount of time. Additionally, they encourage people to get involved and create content that they can repost in the future.

The above post is a good example of a giveaway post. It mentions the word Giveaway and described the steps to participate in 4 simple steps in the caption.

7. Quotes for the win

Everyone likes it when they see something positive, motivating while scrolling through their Instagram feed. After all, the internet is filled with a lot of negative content. Posting positive quotes in your posts and stories every once in a while will create a positive image of your business account in the mind of your followers.

What’s good is posting good quotes generates engagement for almost all types of Instagram accounts. To increase the engagement even further, ask people to tag their friends to spread the good vibes. One good example is shown right below:

Bonus: Tips to Grow Your Instagram

Create professional Instagram posts: 

Standing out on Instagram among millions of posts is not easy if you plan on using generic images. Your posts should look so good that the user stops scrolling momentarily, sees your post, reads the caption, and takes a certain action.

You can make this happen without using any complex photo editing tools. To create good-looking Instagram posts you can simply take advantage of free apps like Canva and create content that looks like it was made by a professional designer.

Schedule posts and track performance: 

One of the factors that determine results on social media platforms like Instagram is consistency. You need to post regularly to stay fresh in the mind of your existing and potential customers. You also need to visit your analytics section regularly to see if your efforts are headed in the right direction.

Both of these things can be achieved using scheduling tools. One such tool that we think every business owner should try is called Later. Its free plan is good enough to start with. It provides you with the ability to schedule 30 posts a month for free and also gives you a dashboard where you can see basic analytics related to the posts that were published.

An alternative to the above tool which we haven’t tried but have heard a lot about recently goes by the name of the Preview app. You can try any of them and schedule multiple posts in one sitting which will save a good amount of time.

That brings us to the end of this article. We hope the above ideas help you in deciding what to post on Instagram. Additionally, we suggest you bookmark this page and come back to it when you are out of ideas next time. 

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