15 Captivating Content Ideas For Instagram Stories And Reels

When it comes to marketing your online business, there’s nothing quite like Instagram Stories or Reels. I can’t think of another platform that builds the “Know, Like, and Trust” factor with your audience as seamlessly and naturally as IG Stories and Reels do.

With either Stories or Reels, your followers get to know the real you, peek behind-the-scenes in your life and business, and learn from you — all in one place.

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Needless to say, if you aren’t using Instagram consistently (or at all) for your course-based business yet, it’s time to step it up.

To help you out, today I want to share 15 prompts for your Instagram Stories.

15 Captivating Content Ideas for Instagram Stories

Instagram stories and reels can help increase sales for your next launch! As you can probably guess, it isn’t as easy as whacking up a bunch of Stories and hoping people like them.

There is some strategy that goes into it, and it’s important to share fresh, relevant content to Stories on a regular basis.

These ideas include educational, inspirational, and behind-the-scenes content — the perfect mixture for building the like, know and trust factor with your audience so you can sell more online courses.

Ready to never stress again about what to post on your IG Stories again!?

Here are 15 content ideas to captivate, connect with, and convert your followers into fans and customers.

But first – download my 30 Instagram Story Prompts for free:

1. Day in the Life or “Work With Me Wednesday”

Take people behind the scenes and show them little snippets of what you get up to throughout your day.

Humans are nosy by nature and we love seeing what’s going on behind closed doors, so anything, where you can bring people behind-the-scenes, will be super popular with your followers.

2. Mini-Training

Start by giving your audience two different choices for topics and then have them vote on which topic they want to learn about.

Once you have the result, come up with a list of three tips or three steps that will help your audience with that particular topic. Share them on Stories.

Remember that your training should either be solving a very specific problem your audience has or helping them reach a certain goal.

3. Step-by-Step Tutorial

If you want to show your audience how to use a certain tool, like an app, why not create a step-by-step video tutorial that you share on Stories?

If a video tutorial would be too long, you could use screenshots or images where you show each main step, making sure there’s a text overlay on top of each image explaining what to do for that step.

4. Promote a Piece of Content

Share a piece of content that you created on a different platform, like your blog, your podcast, or a video.

You could also share a post of yours from another social media platform like Twitter. This is a great way to cross-promote between different platforms.

To put a twist on this one, go ahead and share other people’s content as well!

If you read a really awesome blog post or came across a super funny tweet, take a screenshot and share it on your Stories. Make sure to tag the person who initially created that piece of content to show them some love.

5. Re-Share a Photo

If you post a static photo in your Instagram feed, always click that little paper airplane icon underneath the photo and share it to your Stories.

When you do this, you’ll want to write an enticing, click-worthy caption to go with the photo when you share it on Stories. Make sure you give people a reason to actually click over and check out your post!

6. Ask a Question or Run a Poll

This is a great way to get your followers engaging with your content while also priming them to take action in the future when you give them a CTA to download something or check out one of your paid offers.

I suggest using either the question, poll, or slider features at least once a day on your IG Stories, but the more often, the better.

7. Yay/Nay

This is a really fun idea.

All you have to do is round up a bunch of different images, post them on Stories, and then have your audience vote “yay” or “nay” on each to indicate whether they like that thing or not.

You can do this for just about anything: food, decor, fashion, movies, etc.

8. Shout Outs

Shout out your clients, customers, students, friends, peers… anyone in your world who’s totally crushing it.

In my experience, the more you spread the love to other people, the more love you receive back in return. Oh, and be sure to tag the people you shout out so that they get notified and can re-share!

9. Weekly Roundup

You can create a weekly roundup on Stories for a ton of different things.

For example, a weekly roundup of all the content you published this past week, fun images you saved to your phone over the last 7 days, or even your meals from this week if you’re a food blogger.

10. Bust Myths or Highlight Common Mistakes

Talk about three big myths in your industry and then share what’s actually true in regards to those myths, or highlight three common mistakes your audience is making and tell them how to fix those mistakes.

11. Promote a Paid Offering

Don’t be shy! Your paid offerings are the best way for you to help your audience achieve the results they want.

At least once or twice every week, talk about one of your paid offerings on Stories.

Talk about who the product or service is for, what’s included, and what it will help people achieve. Give a clear CTA at the end.

12. Testimonials, Results, or Case Studies

Did you know that testimonials are the most powerful form of content you can share as a business owner?

For real!

Whenever possible, share testimonials, case studies, and results from your clients and customers on IG Stories.

I really like sharing screenshots of messages my clients have sent me when they’re sharing their recent wins. This feels more casual and can be super in the moment.

13. Tell Your Story

Introduce yourself and give a bit of background info. Tell your followers who you are, what you do, and how you can help them.

Share your background, your expertise, and how you got to where you are today (brownie points if you have photos from back in the day that you can share on Stories!).

14. IG Story Templates

Who doesn’t love a good fill-in-the-blanks template? So fun! And these templates can be created for pretty much every niche out there.

Once you’ve created and uploaded your template, simply have your audience screenshot the template, post it on their Stories, and then fill in their own answers with either text, emojis, or GIFs.

15. Play a Game

A really fun game I like to play on Stories is “Two Truths & a Lie”.

To play, all you have to do is share 3 “facts” about you, except only two of the facts are actually true and one is a lie.

Then you’ll have your audience guess which one is the lie via a poll. Come back later that day or the next day to reveal the answer!

Get 30 more Instagram Story Prompts, for free:

Are you committing to doing more IG Stories this year?

My best and final tip is to create a schedule for yourself so you know what content you’re sharing on what day.

Then it’s as easy as referring to your schedule every morning and following through.

Have a question about Instagram Stories? Share it with me below!

And be sure to follow me on Instagram so we can BFF it up.

Keep Reading:

• Tailwind for Instagram
• Avoid the Instagram Shadowban with this trick
• 25 Productive Things To Do Instead Of Scrolling Instagram

Follow along on Instagram!