← Build Your Tribe | Grow Your Business with Social Media
Build Your Tribe | Grow Your Business with Social Media
These Instagram Post Ideas Will Make You Money - 859
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Lets talk social Media strategy. On one hand, it's harder than it's ever been because your small business is having to compete with major corporations all around the world. But on the other hand, because of the way the algorithms have changed, the playing field is more level than it's ever been. So while your small business has more competition than arguably it's ever had before, you also have the opportunity to win bigger than you ever have before. And according to a new survey From Sprout Social, 80% of people plan to use social media as much if not more this year than they did last year for informing their purchasing decisions, deciding on what to buy, and becoming customers. So with all that being said, here are 15 post ideas that you can use to generate more sales and make more money on Instagram. Plus, before we even get into the 15 ideas, I have five tips for you to help you make more sales regardless of what industry you're in, the kinds of product you sell, or whether or not you use the ideas that I share with you in today's episode. Now, on the date of this episode's release, we are about two and a half weeks away from Black Friday Cyber Monday, which of course is one of the busiest times of the year for shopping. So if you haven't already pre planned or pre made your posts for the upcoming sales cycle, definitely feel free to use the ideas in today's episode. But after Black Friday Cyber Monday or maybe you already have your posts made for that period and you're ready to get your sales going for January 2026. Heck, June 2026 Heck February 2027, I don't care. These posts are going to be evergreen, they're not going to be time bound. So no matter, feel free to use these ideas as creative ways to make sales on Instagram or whatever social media you prefer. Now I know you want the ideas and don't worry, we will get to those in just a second. But even more important than the ideas is the actual strategies that you're going to be using. Because without the right strategies, these ideas, as good and creative as they are, they're probably not going to work as well. Tip Slash Strategy number one for making more sales on Instagram is to use DM automation rather than relying on the link in bio or the link on your Instagram stories. The reason that this is so effective is because typically when you go to make a promotional post on your Instagram, you will say the phrase click the link in my bio or some variation of it. And while Instagram doesn't directly recognize that phrase and then punish you for saying it. Instagram will punish you as a result of what happens after you say it. And here's what I mean by that. When you tell your followers click the link in my bio, they have two options. Either they are uninterested, they don't want to become a customer, and so they're going to continue scrolling. There's nothing we can really do about them. But the other group of people, the people who does want to become a customer, they do want to purchase. You have basically just told them to not engage with the post. They're not going to like comment, save, share or anything because you didn't tell them to. In fact, you explicitly told them to do something else and to go somewhere else. And so now whether someone's going to become a customer or not, they're not going to be engaging with your post. And when the algorithm sees that not very many people are engaging with your post, of course you it's not going to be shown to very many people. That is why your promotional salesy advertising esque posts often are your worst performing posts. It's not because Instagram has a vendetta against small business owners. It's not because the algorithm punishes you for saying link in bio, it's simply because of the strategy that you are using. So instead of saying click the link in my bio, I recommend using DM Automation, which is that thing where someone can comment a specific keyword that you tell them to comment and then they instantly get the link delivered to their inbox. I did an entire episode about DM Automation, how to set it up, all of the benefits of using it a few weeks ago. So if you want to go back and check that out, I highly recommend it. But that not only works on your feed posts, that also works on your Instagram stories. In fact, using DM Automation on your Instagram stories is a part of my STD strategy, which is my strategy to get the maximum possible views on your Instagram stories. Again, I've done an entire episode on that. But if you the TLDR version is basically you want to post a single Instagram story with a lot of text, that's what the T stands for. And the D stands for DM Automation. Basically, instead of putting a link at the bottom of your story and telling people click the link to get 20% off, you tell them reply with the word sale to get 20% off. And then you're getting a bunch of direct messages coming in, people are getting the link and the discount code that they wanted. And because of all of that interaction, you, your stories are going to reach more people. I can all but guarantee if you use literally the exact same sales and promotional posts that you did from 2024 in 2025, but you just swap out the phrase click the link in my bio with a DM Automation cta, you will make more sales. Strategy number two is to focus on benefits rather than features. The catchy way that I like to remember this is that benefits sell and features tell. Benefits are what ultimately will sell your product. It's what will drive people to become customers. But while the features just kind of tell us about your product, they don't necessarily get us to actually purchase. A famous example of this is when Apple was selling their first ipod. They could have said, the iPod has 16 gigabytes of storage, because that is a fact. That is one of the features of the original ipod. But the people who work on the advertising team at Apple are very smart. And so they knew that people weren't going to buy based off the features, they were going to buy based off what the features could do for them. And so Instead of advertising 16 gigabytes of storage, they said 1,000 songs in your pocket, that was a clear benefit, a clear outcome that would be achieved because of the features. And that was ultimately what they decided to go with in their promotional and marketing campaigns. And that's what drove sales. And so, as a brand or business owner, the mistake that we often make is we're so close to our product, we're so in love with all of the features, and we know all of the specifications, we know all the details about our product or offer. And, and so we have a tendency to list off those things which ultimately is just going to bore your consumer and make them uninterested in your product. So I really want you to take a step back and think about what are the big three wins, what are the benefits, what are the takeaways, what are the outcomes, the desired dream outcomes that people can achieve thanks to these features, thanks to this product. And then whether you're scripting your reel, you're writing your captions, you're coming up with your carousels. Anytime you're crafting a post during this promotional season, focus on the benefits rather than the features. Tip number three is don't be scared to post about your product, service or offers. Don't be scared to post about it a ton. The way the algorithms work is that people will only be shown the post that they actually want to see. So if you post 10 promotional posts for your Black Friday sale, very few people I would venture to Bet less than 1% of your followers are going to see all 10. They're likely only going to be seeing the ones that the algorithm thinks they would be interested in and or the ones that are just really performing well. Back in September, we had one of our biggest launches in the history of the Insta Clubhub. And during that launch cycle I posted over 25 times in a 10 day window. Did most of those posts do well? No, some of them absolutely flopped. Some of them only got a couple comments or a couple views, but some of them did really well. And just like I always say, we are bad judges of our own content. And the stuff that you think is going to do really well is the stuff that ends up flopping. And the stuff that you don't really think much of, you think it's just kind of average. That's the stuff that ends up doing the best. And so if you're a bad judge of your content, you're also probably a bad judge of your advertising content. You're not very good at predicting which promotional post is really going to hit home and connect with people. And so don't be scared to over post. I would actually argue that there is no such thing as over posting as long as all of your posts are high quality and engaging. One of my favorite recent examples of this was Justin Bieber. In promotion of his Swag 2 album, his most recent album release. He posted 97 times about the album in a five day period. And yes, I say he because he does a lot of his social media himself. Some people were claiming that he was having a psychotic break. And listen, I ain't no psychologist, so I'm not gonna make any claims. But what I can claim is from a marketing perspective, 97 posts about your album in a five day period, that is great marketing. Because realistically, most people will not see all 97 posts. I made a post documenting his 97 posts and I had numerous people commenting saying, I follow Justin Bieber and I only saw one or two. There was even a few people who said I saw zero out of the 97 because that is how the algorithm works. So bottom line, do not be scared to post about your product, service or offer. If Justin Bieber has to post 97 times, if I have to post 25 times, then why are you handcuffing yourself to only posting once or twice? Tip number four is that clarity is greater than complexity when you're crafting these Promotional posts, I want you to focus on simplicity, use easy to understand language. A good analogy that I've heard used is that when you're doing marketing, you want your posts, your promotions, your captions, your reels, your content to make sense to a drunk grandma. If a drunk grandma couldn't understand your post. And then it's too complex. Ultimately, people are going to be more willing to spend more money with a lesser product that is simple and easy to understand than they are with a better product that is really complex marketing. Ultimately, when you confuse, you lose. So with all these promotional posts, with all these ideas that I'm about to share with you, make sure to focus on simplicity and understandability. Because people are so distracted nowadays, they're seeing thousands of posts every single day. Especially during this season and period of time, they're seeing so many promotional posts. So simplify your content so that it's easier to understand, easier to watch, and easier to get people to convert into a customer. And then my fifth and final tip before we get into the actual ideas is that if you have just one promotion or sale taking place during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, the holidays, New Year, whatever, whenever you have just one sale taking place, swap out your link in bio so that it just has that one link. I know this sounds relatively simple, but oftentimes I see business owners making the mistake of having a sale. But then when you click on the link in their bio, it's a link tree or a menu with 17 different links. I'm not quite sure which one I'm supposed to click on. I'm not sure which one is the sale. And so if you have 20% off of our ski boots, well, then make the link in your bio. The ski boots. Don't make it a menu that has ski boots and skis and ski wear and ski goggles. Simplify, simplify, simplify. Because again, like I said a moment ago, when you confuse, you lose. All right, that's enough of the tips and strategies. Let's get into the 15 ideas. Idea number one is dude with a sign. DudeWithAssign is a viral Instagram account where he goes around New York City usually, and he holds up a cardboard sign that has some sort of public service announcement, hot take, unpopular opinion, or just something that needs to be shared, you can do this too. And it's a very engaging style of content. Now, if you're so bold, you could do this in a big city. If you live near a big downtown area, go to a local street where there's a lot of people Walking around. Write whatever your message is on a sign and then have someone stand across the street or or set up a tripod on the opposite side of the road, zoom in and take a picture of yourself. If you don't, because you live in the rural countryside, you can still achieve this style of content by simply writing your message on a piece of cardboard and standing on the side of the road. The cool thing about this idea is that you could take a video of yourself holding up the sign and post that as a reel. Or you could take a photo of yourself and post it as a still image. Or you could take multiple photos of yourself holding up the sign and post it as a carousel. So this one idea kind of has three different versions baked into it. Exactly what the sign says is totally up to you. But again, focus on simplicity. You could use the sign to just announce the sale, comment the word discount for 20% off. Or you could have the sign say some sort of public service announcement, unpopular opinion or hot take that. Then people are going to read the caption to hear your point of view on. And then maybe while reading your point of view in the caption is where you're going to make the sale and have the call to action to comment the word blank. To get blank. Idea number two is to spell out words using emojis. This is also a very easy idea and you can use the emojis to spell out whatever word or phrase hot take, unpopular opinion, public service announcement you want it to. Basically all you have to do is add text on the screen that says read the first letter of each emoji and then you use emojis to spell out words. Idea number three is the fake news or even the fake arrest post. These are two different posts that I use during our promotion cycle in September. The fake news is especially good if you have a smaller account because the likelihood that the New York Times or CNN or ESPN is going to be reporting on you and your business and your sale is really, really low. And so that makes it funnier, it makes it more obvious that it is fake news. Basically just go into Canva and create a fake screenshot of a tweet that looks like it's from whatever news channel you prefer. Or you could use multiple different news channels if you so desire, and then have the news basically be reporting on you or your business or your sale. And then the fake arrest style post is also a funny one. You're basically making a play on how frequently you're talking about your business or your brand. I like to Put this one kind of towards the end of the promotional cycle once I assume people have seen at least a couple of my promotions or ads because it's kind of playing on the fact that, hey, I know I'm posting a lot about this sale right now and so I'm making a joke about being arrested for talking about it so much. But then even in that news announcement about being arrested, I'm still saying, oh, and by the way, if you want to purchase, here's how you can learn more about the sale. So again, it's funny, it's lighthearted, and of course it's just a way to grab people's attention in a more fun and playful way than just a generic basic sales graphic. Speaking of bland generic sales graphics, the truth is those just don't work anymore. Making some pretty flyer in Canva or making some generic graphic design that says Black Friday sale 20% off. I mean, you can do it, you might as well, but it's probably not going to convert well. And the reason for that is that people are seeing thousands of posts per day. Some high end estimates even suggest that some people are seeing upwards of 10,000 posts a day, which is mind blowing. If you spend, you know, X number of hours per day and you see each post for three seconds, there are people who realistically are seeing over 10,000 posts a day. And so if you want your sale or your promotion to stand out, if you want your small business to be able to compete with Amazon and Temu and all these other major corporations out there, you have to make your content entertaining. You have to make it captivating. You have to make it a little bit controversial or funny. You have to make it a little bit bold or out there, unique, creative. If you want to stand out, if you actually want to grab people's attention and then convert that view into a customer. And that's why I'm sharing these tips and ideas with you today. Because I want you to be able to compete with these major corporations. Because the superpower that you have that they don't is, is you don't have to go through 17 layers of checks and approvals. You don't have to get the lawyers to sign off. You don't have to get the board of directors to approve your ad. You can create your ad right on your phone or right on Canva or right on your computer in just a couple of minutes and just press post. And so I want to encourage you to do that. Idea number four is the kick the quote trend. Basically, there is one specific song that a lot of people are using, but really you could use any song that has a beat drop or a sudden kick of bass and, and all you have to do is take a few steps forward, look down at a very shrunken down, tiny, small piece of text on the screen, kick that piece of text or punch it or hit it with a golf club or whatever right as the beat is hitting, and then use keyframes to enlarge the text very quickly and it will make it look like the text is being hit at the screen. And it's again, a great way to grab attention. And you can use the text to deliver whatever message, public service announcement, hot take, or sales promotion that you want. Idea number five is the going for a hike and looking for a sign trend. Basically, get yourself dressed up as if you are going for a hike and then go out in the woods or on an actual hike or on a mountain. Basically just go anywhere that isn't in your home, even if you were just on the sidewalk. You could do this trend. Take a video of yourself walking on 0.5 so that it's kind of wide angle and add some text on the screen that says I was getting overwhelmed or I was getting stressed out or I was getting sad about, and then insert something in your niche. So Instagram was stressing me out, baking was overwhelming me. Planning for the holidays was stressing me out. Whatever that is, whatever relates to your niche, add that text to the screen and then finish the text by saying, and I went for a walk looking for a sign. And I went for a hike looking for a sign. I went for a stroll looking for a sign. Basically the point of the hook is to say that this niche related thing was annoying me, frustrating me, whatever, it's relatable. And then you finish by saying I was looking for a sign. Then the funny part, the plot twist is you add a second clip with your own point of view, filmed kind of looking down at your feet, walking. And you're going to walk upon a sign that you have obviously placed there. So for my example, I said that I was going for a hike looking for a sign. And. And then I used some twigs and rocks on the ground to spell out the call to action that I wanted people to do. You could use chalk, you could use water, heck, you could use like a crumpled up piece of trash. Then when you open it, it has the fake sign written on the trash. Whatever you want to do. Basically you're just connecting with people in a relatable way in your hook and Then you're kind of plot twisting them, playing on their emotions or their expectations by having the actual sign be something that's related to your business or the sale. Idea number six is the timeless memes. Memes are always going to be funny. Memes are always going to exist. There's always going to be a dozen new memes that are in rotation and that are popular and that are going viral at any given moment. If you want, every single week for free, we send out an email to our email list that has five meme ideas and five trending audio ideas. But if you want the link to sign up for that, just click on the link. I'll put it down in the show notes below this episode so you can get that email. We send it out every single Tuesday with new updated meme ideas. One popular one that I've seen going around right now is the top half of the screen shows like a building that's on fire and it's captioned with something like the world burning down or the world going into chaos or whatever, the world is on fire. And then the lower half is Will Ferrell yelling. And you label that as yourself and you'll say, me talking about our Black Friday sale, or me telling people that they can get 20% off my yoga mats, or me telling people that it's buy one, get one free for ski boots, whatever. You just use it to, again, play on people's expectations and, you know, connect and relate and say, yeah, I know everything's chaotic right now, I know the world is on fire, but I'm still a small business who needs to make sales. Idea number seven is the hidden object carousel. And this is one of the ideas that I gave in my recent 8 Carousel Ideas video, which, if you haven't checked that out, definitely go back and watch that. Because there are some creative, fun, trending carousel ideas that I gave and gave you full tutorials on how to make them. But essentially this one is all about hiding an object or a word within the carousel. So when people look at the first screen, they don't really see it. But then as they scroll through and swipe through the carousel, the word kind of emerges or the object kind of reveals itself in the carousel, and you can tell people to comment the word that they see or comment the object that they see. And then when they comment that object or that word, and you can set it up so they automatically receive a direct message with your sale, with your promotion, you could even be even more explicit by saying if you can find the hidden word in this carousel, I will send you 20% off whatever it is that you're selling. So it creates a little gamification, it gets people involved, it gets them spending time with your post, interacting, commenting. And again, if you want a full tutorial on how to make that, check out the episode that I did a few weeks ago with the carousel ideas. Idea number eight is the tearing paper magic trick. This one looks really cool, but it's really just a simple camera trick that is very easy to do. All you have to do is write your message on a piece of paper. Again, just like so many of our examples today. It could be a call to action relating to your sale, could be a hot take, an unpopular opinion, whatever that may be, write it on a piece of paper and then film yourself ripping up the paper into a bunch of little bits. Then all you have to do is, in editing, put the video in reverse. And then when you watch the video in reverse, it will look like you're magically putting the pages back together even though they've been ripped up. And then at the end, you're showing the actual message, the payoff, whatever it is that you want people to see. Number nine is the store bought pesto stitch. This is one of the most famously stitched videos in the history of social media. Basically, there's this video of a girl who's saying, don't call me crazy, but I've never liked store bought pesto. And the joke is that that's not that crazy. Like, come on, there's more crazy things out there in the world. And it's really just a meme that's become a joke. Like it's not that silly of a hook for her to say, you know, it's a fine video, but it's become a meme. And so all you do is you take that original video, which I will link in the show notes below, and you stitch it right after she says the hook. And then you can kind of respond to her and say, you know, I don't think you're crazy, or I'm not going to call you crazy, or that's not crazy. You want to hear what really is crazy? And then you could go into your own talking head reel explaining what is crazy. Maybe what's crazy is the discount that you have for Black Friday Cyber Monday. Maybe what's crazy is that people haven't become customers yet. Maybe what's crazy is insert whatever hot take or unpopular opinion or tip or strategy that you want to share. Basically you are taking this meme. Ified hook and then you are hook swapping or transitioning into your own content. Before we move on to number 10, quick little secret. All nine of the examples that I've shared with you so far are examples that I have done, and that's why you've been seeing examples from my account so far. But these next six, number 10 through number 15, are ideas that I have for myself and ideas that I plan on using for my own Black Friday Cyber Monday promotion. And so you can absolutely steal these ideas. You can absolutely use them before I use them. But if you do see me post one of these ideas on my Instagram in the next few weeks, just know it'll be like a little inside joke between you and I that you knew I was going to make this post before I even made it. Idea number 10 is a parody of the classic perfume ad. If you have never had the privilege of seeing one of these cheesy perfume ads on tv, well then you're lucky because these perfume ads are so cringe, they're so funny and they have some stereotypical tropes about them. They include black and white footage, very dramatic slow mo visuals, and super over the top cheese pot cliche level acting as well as voiceovers. So basically all you have to do is take these tropes, take these stereotypes that you see over and over again in the perfume ads, and use them to make an ad for your own product. I've seen people do this for physical products. I've seen real estate agents do this for homes that they're selling. And it's just a really fun, creative way to take something that so many people are familiar with and put a funny spin on it. Idea number 11 is specifically for those of you with physical products, although I guess you could get creative and do it for a digital product as well, but it's really going to be most applicable for those of you who have a physical, tangible item that you're going to sell. And idea number 11 is the 3D phone. All you have to do is take a video of your phone where your phone has nothing but a green, solid green background on it. Then you take another video of yourself with the product and you push it forward, you push it towards the camera or you move it towards the screen. After that, all you have to do is bring both video files into whatever editing app you prefer. I prefer capcut. So then all you have to do is take the video of the phone with the green background, remove the actual green screen from your phone screen, take the video of yourself with the product and put it behind the image of your phone. And then right at the moment where the object would be theoretically passing through the phone screen, just cut your video and add a second video of you pushing the object through on top of it. This one might be a little bit more challenging for those of us who are more beginner in terms of our editing. So maybe this is one that you skip over, or maybe this is one that you practice and use to refine your editing skills. And I'm just now realizing that I lied to you because number 12 is one that I have done. It wasn't one that I used for my September launch promotion, but it was something that I used to promote something else, so I lied. I have used this one already, but it's one of my favorites, and it's one that you should absolutely use yourself. And it does require a second person. It requires a loved one, a family member, a spouse, a partner, whatever. And basically, you're going to have the second person, you're going to have your partner start on the screen, and you're going to be kind of standing behind them. And at the beginning, your partner is going to be very aggressive, very in your face or in the camera's face, I guess I should say. And they're going to say something along the lines of, my wife wants to tell you about her Black Friday sales, so you better listen. My husband wants to tell you about his homemade pie, so you better listen. My blank wants to tell you about blank, so you better listen. They're basically your aggressive spokesperson telling the viewers that they better listen up. And then you kind of come out from behind them and you kind of play the role of someone who's a little bit more meek, a little bit more shy, a little bit more timid. And you tell the viewers about your product, your service, your offer, your sale, whatever it is. And during that, they're still standing behind you, kind of making a, you know, you better listen, I'm watching you, that sort of thing. Idea number 13 is another great one for those of us with physical products. But of course, it could be used if you don't have a physical product. Basically, you're going to start the camera with someone off screen, but their hand on screen making half of a heart sign. And the text on screen says, I can't wait to find love. But then a hand comes in from the other side, and instead of connecting and making a heart, it turns the first hand, so it's now making like a grip, hand motion. And then it brings them in the physical product. And when the hand is being turned, the text on the screen changes from I can't wait to find love to I can't wait to find. And then love is crossed out and the rest of the sentence is whatever the physical product is. Second to Last idea number 14 is the tape measure trend. This one is very easy. Basically, just set your phone up on the ground or on a really low tripod, set a tape measure up right in front of it, and then make the tape measure super, super long. And at the end of the tape measure, write on a sticky note some sort of message. Again, so many of today's ideas allow you to have flexibility. Whether you want that message to be just a straight up call to action, whether you want it to be a hot take, whether you want it to be a tip, whether you want to say, read the caption, whatever, just write a short message on that sticky note and then walk into the frame, kind of down by the sticky note, down at the far end, far away from the camera, out of focus, walk towards the camera and flip the switch on the tape measure. So the tape measure very quickly recoils and, you know, pulls it in and basically it will pull the message into focus. It will pull the sticky note closer to the screen so that people can then read what the sticky note Sundays. And my 15th and final idea, before I share it with you, I'm going to ask you to subscribe because I suck at doing that. I seriously always forget. And now we're all the way at the end of today's episode and I haven't asked you. So if you've made it this far, my guess is that you enjoy Instagram tips, Instagram ideas, social media marketing strategies. And so make sure to subscribe to this podcast, build you'd tribe, because every single week I put out some sort of episode about new Instagram features, social media trends and marketing ideas. But with that being said, our last and final idea is what I like to call the juxtaposed mouth trend. Basically, you want to start by taking a video of someone else really close up so that the camera is just taking the video of their mouth and they are maybe giving a sales pitch. They're talking about your upcoming promotion, whatever it may be, and then go to different people, other friends, family, colleagues, coworkers, whatever, and put the video in front of their mouth so that it's lined up as if it was their mouth. But in reality, it's very obviously someone else's mouth. You want to encourage the person in the background to be making silly faces, different eyebrows, different eye expressions. And it's just a fun, creative, interactive way to get a message across in a way that people will actually listen. Speaking of actually listening, I want to thank you for actually listening to today's entire episode. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button. If you do test out any of these 15 ideas, tag me in them, send them to me on Instagram via direct message, and I would love to hype you up and just take a look. And if nothing else, as always, happy networking.
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