What To Post On Instagram Without Having A Product To Sell

Here’s exactly what to post on Instagram for your business.

My clients come to me all the time and they says this. “I can’t post anything on Instagram because I don’t have my product ready to sell or I don’t have pictures of my samples done yet, I haven’t done a photoshoot so I can’t start Instagram. That’s exactly the wrong mindset that you want to have. You want to be starting Instagram and social media before you do anything with any type of business. You want to build your followings so that once you’re ready to launch, you have your website up and running, and there’s actually people waiting to buy your stuff. They will go over to your website and buy right away instead of having your website launched and you’re launching to no one because you didn’t spend the time to build a following. This is super important. So, you need to know what to post on Instagram. I don’t want you to post stuff about your products and I don’t want you to post stuff about yourself. Instagram and social media is meant to be social and it’s meant to be about the lifestyle of your customer. 

Figure Out Who Your Target Customer Is

You really need to spend some time figuring out who this person is and I’m not talking about making it up. There’s actually a strategic way that I teach in one of my courses, Market Research Made Easy, to actually figure out who the specific target customer of your brand. There’s what I call the secret Facebook competitor tool that I teach on how to use Facebook to actually find out who this person is, down to what music they like to listen to, what brands they like to buy, what TV shows and movies they watch, etc. Thus it’s really, really specific and you’re not making this up.

Be Social On Instagram

Social media is about building your brand and building relationships. It’s about building a tribe of people – not selling your stuff – and has to be social. It’s the idea of networking taken online, so think of networking in person. If someone says something to you, you say something back. It’s really important that you actually engage in relationships and build relationships online. It’s about education and entertainment and adding value. I always say think of yourself as a publisher of la magazine or newspaper and every day you have to come up with what juicy content your readers are going to want to watch or listen to you. The general rule of thumb is 80% information, 20% promotion. Don’t post your products all the time and don’t be talking about all the sales that you’re having – that’s only 20% of the time. The other 80% you’re going to be getting valuable information and that’s really important.

Learn About The Platform

It’s important to know what this platform is all about because all of the social media platforms are a little bit different. On Instagram, the monthly users are around five hundred million, and 75% of them live outside the US. That’s really important to take note of especially if you are looking to sell your product outside of the US or reach someone outside of the US. Eighty million photos are shared daily on Instagram, which is shocking. Age range, majority of Instagram users are between the ages of 18 to 29, so it’s a very young demographics. If that’s not your target customer, then Instagram might not be the platform for you. However, I tell most of my clients Instagram is the way to go, especially for fashion startups. Everything is going on Instagram these days and it’s so heavily picture-focused, and people just love it for that reason.  Gender, it’s about equal income, and keep in mind that 52% make over 50,000. Therefore it’s not a very high net worth type of individual that’s go in on Instagram for the most part. On education, 24% have some form of higher education, and no one really wants to read more than they have to. Instagram is visually captivating, which is why it’s great for fashion brands. Additionally keep in mind that the per follower engagement rate is 58 times higher than Facebook and 125 times higher than Twitter, and this is why it’s one of my number one platforms that I recommend all startup fashion designers take advantage of. It’s also two and a half more times likely that people will actually click on your ads than other platforms.

Best Days/Times To Post

Not only what you post is important, but actually the time of day that you post is equally important. Generally, weekdays at 5:30 PM, Saturdays at 11:00 AM, and Sundays at 5:00 PM have been shown to be the best times to post on Instagram. You can always set an alarm so you remember and are prepared quicker. Keep in mind that you want to engage with your target market in a way that makes them feel like you’re reading their minds. Think about on a day-to-day basis, how many different things you think about. In order to engage with your customers, you really want to post a variety of things that all have to deal with your customers’ lifestyle.

What To Post On Instagram

So, here are 13 ideas to get you started. All of these ideas you can use without having any of your product to sales, so this is really geared towards those new startup designers. You haven’t gotten your samples yet and you’re looking for things to post on social media. Of course, you can always use this if you are well-established brand as well! 

1. Post about your industry, latest trends, or color.  Pantone is a great resource for this, so you can post the Pantone color of the year or the new colors that come out each season. The fashion industry is super easy to post about with all the trends, fashion shows, and designers. 

2. Hobbies or interests of your customer. Whether they like to travel or eat certain foods or enjoy fitness, you can post so many things that they would enjoy! 

3. Your USP. What is your unique selling proposition? Maybe your company is using all eco-friendly green fabrics, so that could be a stuff that you talk about. You want to post about that and really introduce that to your customer ahead of time so they know what your company is all about. 

4. You want to make things educational. Anytime you can give quick info or quick tips or little snippets of advice, that’s always great to post on Instagram. 

5. Call to actions. You are asking your audience to do something. You’re engaging with them and asking them to take action. It’s a great way to get people to tag other people and companies and hopefully spread the word about your brand. I love this one because you’re literally asking your fans to do the work for you and easily starting the conversation. 

6. Inspirational quotes. These are perfect and you can do so many different things with this. You can either take quotes you have seen or create your own for your own brand. This branded image has your colors and the same look and feel of your page. You can even add a watermark or maybe your tag at the bottom so it’s become more of your own. Whichever you choose, you definitely want to make sure when you’re posting some consistent inspirational quotes throughout your page. 

7. Different types of games. People love to play games, so try a fill in the blank, multiple-choice, or question. These are all great options, and I can’t tell you guys how much this works. Voting is another great game. Whether you’re choosing between prints, which sketch you should do, or which color you should make a dress in, post that on social media because people love to vote. I get the most amounts of comments and engagements whenever it’s a voting option – so, keep that in mind. 

8. Caption this. Basically how this works is you post an image and then at the bottom, you don’t put a caption and then you put “caption this.” Then, your audience comments a caption for this photo and vote for their favorite caption. Everyone gets involved and it’s really great for engagement. 

9. Behind-the-scenes posts. Anytime you can post any kind of behind-the-scenes stuff. Whether you’re going to visit a fabric vendor or a manufacturer – you don’t have to post a lot – you want to keep it kind of secretive and keep something left to be imagination a little bit. Nonetheless, people love to see the behind-the-scene stuff. They love to feel like they are part of your brand and they’re actually helping design and create the brand with you. Secretly, I think everyone wishes they were a fashion designer. Especially for fashion designers, I feel like people want to live vicariously through you. So, post as much of that as you possibly can! 

10. Blog. This is another reason you should be blogging, and I teach all about blogging in another course of mine, Mastering Digital Marketing. What’s great is that you can create a branded image, post it on social media, and then drive the traffic back to your blog.  You put a link to the blog in your profile at the top and then people can click the link and go read the blogs. This is another reason why you should be blogging because it gives you great content to post on Instagram. Then of course, you can always put a link to your coming soon page and promote that. So when you’re getting ready to get started, you can still gain emails and interested clients. Social media in essence is just a way to drive traffic back to your website and engage with your customers. The goal of social media is to start the conversation there and finish it on your website where hopefully they are actually purchasing something. 

11. Holidays and events. You definitely want to take advantage of any holidays and events coming up. It gives you an excuse to post a cute picture of what is happening that day. This can also be turned into a branded image, and possibly even a future blog post! 

12. Repurpose other posts. When you’re posting on social media, you’re just repurposing things. You’re reposting one of your old posts, content from somewhere else, or gaining ideas to make your own. It’s not always coming up with new fresh content, it’s about taking the content that you already have and repurposing it on Instagram. 

13. Contest. This is a great way to get a lot of buzz and drive your business. In the beginning when you don’t necessarily have any product to give away, you can find other things to give away. Think of things like gift cards or beauty products – items your audience would want. You can also see and ask all your friends, specifically any business owners, if they be willing to donate an item or even be willing to donate a service as something that you could potentially give away. Just make sure if you’re collaborating with someone else, it’s mutually beneficial for both of you. Then, give your contest rules and write this out in the caption – tag a friend, tag 2 friends, follow us and the brand mentioned, drop your email address, etc. You want to be sure that in your contest, you’re actually putting specifically what you want people to do. You are not just giving away something for free, you’re getting something in return. You’re getting an email address, you’re getting follows, you’re getting likes, you’re getting engagement – whatever it is –  you want people to do exactly what you want them to do. 

So, all of these 13 posts can be used without having any product. Now, let’s go through six different key items for the descriptions.

What To Put For Instagram Captions

1. Be specific. You want to definitely be specific. You want to make it easy for your customers to go to your page and find the item that they’re looking for. If don’t want them looking all around your website, getting lost, getting sidetracked, and then they probably won’t end up buying the thing. You probably have about three seconds to grab their attention on your website and then another six seconds to actually get them to buy. It’s a total of nine seconds, so you really want to be sure to be specific in your descriptions.  

2. Ask questions. This is always great for engagement because people love to answer questions. By asking a question, you are actually getting your users to engage and there will be a lot of comments. 

3. Quote. You can simply just put a quote as you description is you’re unsure what to put. This is great for tagging other people in your post and using tons of hashtags. 

4. Play on words. See what’s going on in the picture you’re posting and how you can make it witty or creative. People love this type of stuff! 

5. Put the meat of your post in the description. You basically use the image as a teaser. Therefore, your followers literally have to read the description in order to find out what you’re talking about. 

6. Put something catchy. Putting something cute or catchy that aligns with your target customer is also a great idea. After you got your pictures and captions set, it’s time to take it a step further.

Use Hashtags

It’s really important that you use a mixture of hashtags and I have a little four step process here. 

1. Some of your hashtags should be brand specific, meaning hashtag whatever your brand name is. So for me, it’s #FashionAngelWarrior and #FAW. 

2. You want something that’s industry specific. So, if you are a fashion designer or upcoming designer, you might use #DesignerLife or #FashionDesigner or #ClothingDesigner. 

3. You definitely want things that are photo specific. So, for example, if you’re posting a picture of an African print maxi, hashtag #AfricanPrintMaxi or #AfricanPrint or #AfricanMaxi or #MaxiDress. If you’re going to an event, you definitely want to hashtag the event name, because keep in mind, the purpose of the hashtag is so that people can find you. Think about what your customer is going to be searching for, what your target customer is going to be looking for, and then see what other people are posting. This is actually another form of networking! 

4. You want to post some of the top 20 or the most popular hashtags. For example, #PhotoOfTheDay or #Instagram, those two are notoriously always in the top 10 or the top 20. You can find the most popular hashtags on google.com/trends, Twitter Trends, or Instagram’s top 20 website (there’s one called WEBSTA and there is one called TagsForLikes). Typically speaking, you can only post 20 hashtags and a photo in a description. So, you want to make sure that you’re using a nice mixture of all four of these in your top 20 or in your 20 hashtags that you’re using. About five of the each is a good gauge to go by! 

Interested in learning more about what to post on Instagram? Let us do an Instagram Audit on your page, get you started with our 30-Day Instagram Starter Kit, or check out my other online courses! And for weekly fashion biz tips, join our Fearless Fashionpreneur Facebook Page!

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