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What to Post on Instagram Stories When You Have No Ideas
- Ginger Borden
- Mar 13
- 4 min read
If you’ve ever opened Instagram Stories and stared at your phone wondering what to post, you’re not alone. Many business owners struggle to come up with ideas for their stories, especially when they’re already creating posts, reels, and other content.
The good news is that Instagram Stories don’t need to be complicated. In fact, simple strategies often work best.
Why Instagram Stories Still Matter
For many people, Instagram is where they share their most beautiful and polished photos.
Businesses use the platform to grow their audience and sell their products. I’ve personally been using Instagram for marketing for almost nine years.
But the average person opening the app is used to seeing highly curated content. Perfect lighting, perfectly styled photos, and polished posts dominate the main feed.
That level of quality is important for your feed.
Instagram Stories, however, are where things become more relaxed.
Stories allow you to share the imperfect moments, behind-the-scenes content, quick thoughts, and personal moments that help your audience get to know the real person behind the business.
If you're trying to improve engagement on Instagram overall, I also wrote about several hidden Instagram features that can help boost engagement that many business owners overlook.
This is where connection happens.
Why Most Business Owners Run Out of Story Ideas
Most business owners approach Instagram Stories the same way they approach their feed.
They put on their “perfection hat.”
Because of that, they overthink what to post.
They start asking themselves questions like:
What should I say?
Is this valuable enough?
Should I be selling something?
Instead of posting naturally, they freeze.
The result is that many business owners either stop posting stories entirely or only show up when they have something to sell.
The Simple “One Story Per Day” Strategy
Posting daily Instagram Stories helps keep you top of mind with your audience.
There’s also an interesting pattern that happens when people watch multiple stories in a row.
For example, if you post five stories in a sequence, 100% of viewers might watch the first story. By the second story, that number might drop to 80%. By the fifth story, it could drop closer to 20%.
Each time the algorithm sees viewers dropping off, it can reduce how often your stories appear for others.
This is why a simple one story per day strategy can work surprisingly well.
One story is quick for people to watch and easy for you to create.
That said, don’t let this stop you from posting multiple stories if you want to. The people who watch all the way through are often your most engaged followers, and they are much more likely to convert when you share offers.
How Templates Make Stories Faster
At this point you may still be wondering:
What should I actually post in that one story each day?
In my experience, there are three main types of marketing content on social media:
• Attract content
• Nurture content
• Sales content
If you are not actively promoting an offer or running a campaign, your stories should mostly focus on attracting new people and nurturing your existing audience.
The challenge is that running a business already requires a lot of mental energy.
Creating offers, serving clients, responding to messages, and posting content can feel overwhelming.
That’s exactly why I created 593+ done-for-you Instagram Story templates in Canva.
You simply open the template, adjust the colors or fonts to match your brand, and add your content.
Instead of staring at a blank screen wondering what to post, you can create a story in just a few minutes.
How to Never Run Out of Story Ideas Again
Templates make creating stories faster.
But the bigger challenge many business owners face is not knowing what to say.
That’s why I also created the StoryFlow Prompt System.
Inside this system are 365 Instagram Story prompts organized so you never have to think about what to post. You simply choose a prompt, copy it, paste it into your template, and post your story.
The goal is simple:
Help you show up consistently without spending hours trying to think of new ideas.
Consistency Builds Connection
Instagram Stories give your audience a chance to see the real person behind your business. When you remove the pressure of perfection and give yourself simple systems to follow, showing up becomes much easier.
Templates and prompts remove the guesswork so you can focus on building relationships with your audience.
Final Thoughts
Instagram Stories don’t need to be complicated or perfectly planned. The goal is simply to stay visible, build relationships, and keep your audience engaged.
With simple templates and a library of prompts, you can remove the pressure of figuring out what to post each day.
Frequently Asked Question's
What should I post on Instagram Stories for my business? Behind the scenes moments, quick tips, questions for your audience, personal updates, or short insights related to your niche.
How often should I post Instagram Stories? Many businesses see strong engagement posting at least once per day.
Do Instagram Stories help increase engagement? Yes. Stories help build relationships and keep your account top of mind with your audience.
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