It’s that time again. You’re planning out your Instagram social media calendar and you have more empty spaces than ideas. Don’t fret! We get it, we’ve been there too. Here are 25 post suggestions to help spark some inspiration! 

We’ve updated this post with a few tools that can help you create more engaging Instagram posts too! 

*Please be aware that some of the links in this post are affiliate links and may result in Parallel 70 receiving a commission. This does not impact the price or product for you, but it does help us keep the blog up and running.

1) Fun Holidays and National Days 

Create fun and memorable posts for some of the National Days for different professions and foods. On National Doughnut Day treat your office to a box from the local doughnut shop and post the pictures! Check out the National Day Calendar for ideas.

2) Charities and Fundraisers

Share the love for local charities and fundraisers by posting pictures of you and your team participating in charity walks and picking up a Blizzard on Miracle Treat Day. You’ll increase team morale, build your public image, and support a good cause. Sounds like a win-win to us!

3) Share The Love

Give your local bakeries, restaurants, and coffee shops a shout out when you go out for lunch or pick up treats for the office. One of our favorites is sharing photos of our chai lattes from the local chai bar! 

4) Holidays

Post holiday appropriate messages for New Years, Remembrance Day, etc. As part of your Social Media Strategy, your company will need to decide in advance how religious holidays will be handled. Are you publicly acknowledging all religious holidays (Christmas, Hanukkah, Diwali, etc)? Are you keeping everything very conservative and will stick to “Seasons Greetings” in December? For your reputation, you will need to be consistent.

5) Behind The Scenes

Give your audience a glimpse of what goes on behind the curtains. Share images and stories of your work space, pets in the office, new office décor, and work processes. This could be staged, like a short video tour of your workspace, or it could be a spur of the moment post because two of your staff members came to work in the same shirt! 

6) Sneak Peeks

Do you have a new product coming out? Or an inventory shipment coming in?  Share a glimpse of what’s coming to peak your audience’s curiosity. This may also be a good time to run a little giveaway campaign and give a new product to an audience member that can guess what the product is!

7) Team Members

Showcase your team members and give them a chance to be in the spotlight. Take a fun picture of them and have them tell a fun story or share some fun facts. This could also be a chance to publicly recognize an employee’s achievement or milestone. 

8) Quotes

Share some inspiration from your favorite thought leaders. But be careful to make sure you accurately attribute the quote to the right person! 

9) Share a Not-So-Famous Quote

Don’t want to post cliché quotes? Post a saying that you use or is used amongst your team. This could be an opportunity to shed some light on company or industry jargon and acronyms.

10) Ask a Question

Engage your audience by asking them for their input. Coffee or tea? Cats or dogs?

11) Motivation

Has the news or current events had you down recently? Share some motivation or positive thoughts. Make it a text graphic or add the motivation to the caption.

12) Funny Videos or Memes

This is great if you aren’t feeling very inspired. Everyone loves animal videos right? Just make sure you aren’t violating any copyright laws!

13) Host a giveaway

Increase your engagement by giving away a prize to a follower. Requesting comments with tagged friends or posting a picture with a branded hashtag is popular.

Make sure you double check the platform’s rules about promotions, contests, and giveaways. You can find Instagram’s latest rules here.

14) Instagram Stories

Convert an Instagram story into a post, this way the content will live on beyond the 24hr life cycle of the Instagram Story. This also works the other way around, posts can be used as stories too.

15) Shout out

Coordinating mutual shout out posts with someone who serves a similar customer base can be a great way to promote engagement and expand your audience. If you run a high-end hair salon, try coordinating mutual shout out posts with someone who does lashes in your area. 

16) Flat Lay Pictures

Flat lay images have become quite popular. Sometimes they are done as a birds-eye-view of a desk or work space. Sometimes they are done as a “What’s inside my bag?” style photo that shares the contents of a make-up artist or photographer’s bag. 

17) Your Latest Tech.

Share a picture of your favorite gadget or latest purchase that has you pumped. Promote engagement by asking if anyone else uses it.

18) App Discovery

Did you find a new app that has been a game changer for you? Share it!

19) Instagram Loves Animals

Share a picture of your team member’s pets or the squirrel that visits you in the courtyard.

20) Take a break

Share with your audience what you do to de-stress or treat yourself. Share a Sunday morning picture of your coffee and a book. Or a picture of your staff enjoying a staff BBQ.

21) Work Pictures

 Post fun shots of your team at work. Attending conferences, business planning sessions, work from home days, and inventory shipments. Group selfies can be fun!

22) Share a Book

Have you read a good book lately? Share it with your followers! Or share a newly released book from someone you admire.

23) Goals and Milestones

Share a personal or business goal or milestone. Celebrate reaching 5000 followers, or 1000 online product orders.

24) Anniversaries

Does your company have an anniversary coming up? Commemorate it with a grateful message to your audience. Be sure to thank the ones who have supported your company since the early days.

25) Curate from your followers 

Ask your audience to post and tag pictures of them using your product and then feature their pictures on your profile. This is a great way to build a branded hashtag campaign! Make sure you have explicit consent from the post owner before sharing the post!

BONUS! 26) Get Personal

Your customers will appreciate a chance to get to know you as a person, not just as a business. Share with them the gorgeous sunset you saw while camping last weekend. Or the magic of the golf course first thing in the morning. Do you enjoy cooking? Share a picture of the delicious yet time effective recipe you made last night that also doubles has an envy worthy lunch!

Social Media Tools

Now that we have your Instagram social media calendar full of great ideas, it is time to create your posts! You don’t have to be a graphic designer or photographer to create beautiful Instagram posts.

Canva has thousands of social media templates to help you make stunning posts. And Creative Market has template bundles for almost anything you can think of, including quotes, puzzles, and holidays. They even have additional social media templates for Canva!

And if your photos haven’t turned out as nicely as you thought they would, try using a tool like Pic Monkey to do some photo editing. 

If you’re still having some trouble getting your Instagram profile to where you want it to be, check out our post How To Get Started With Social Media for further tips and tools!

Do you have any go-to Instagram posts that we haven’t mentioned? Share them in a comment below!

We also have a post to help you with Twitter posts! Read it here!