What to post when you have nothing to post: 24 ideas

Every business owner knows the feeling. It has been two weeks, the feed is quiet, and nothing "worth posting" has happened. The truth is that an ordinary workday is full of posts. You have stopped seeing them, because to you they are routine.

Here are 24 ideas you can shoot in five minutes on a normal day, and six more that need no photo at all.

Show the work

1. Before and after. The same spot from the same angle. It works for lawns, kitchens, haircuts, cars, cakes and teeth.
2. Halfway. The job in progress: flour on the table, the engine open, the wall half painted.
3. The finished thing in use. Not the cake on the counter but the cake at the party.
4. The detail nobody notices. The seam, the weld, the crumb, the edge. The thing you are quietly proud of.

Show the people

5. Who picks up the phone. A face and a first name.
6. A favorite. "Maria's pick this week" says more than "new arrivals".
7. Your own start. One old photo and three sentences about how it began.
8. A regular. With their permission, the customer who has been coming for ten years.

Answer the questions you get every day

9. The question you hear most. Answer it once, in public.
10. What it costs. "Starts at" is enough. It spares both sides an awkward phone call.
11. How long it takes. From the first call to the finished job.
12. What to bring or prepare. The list you would otherwise explain on the phone.

Let others speak

13. A review. Take your best one and post it as a picture, with the customer's first name.
14. A thank-you note. The card on the wall, the text message, the drawing from a kid.
15. A number. Years in business, jobs this season, loaves this morning.
16. A job that came from a recommendation. "Third house on this street" says more than any slogan.

Be useful

17. One tip. How to make it last longer, how to store it, how to clean it.
18. One mistake to avoid. The thing you fix for customers again and again.
19. A seasonal reminder. Gutters before the first frost, the car before the road trip, orders before the holiday.
20. What you would do. "If it were my house, I would..." is a sentence people trust.

Be local

21. The view from your door. Your street in the morning.
22. A neighbor. The shop next door, the supplier you rely on.
23. Something happening in town. The game, the market, the parade, and what you are doing for it.
24. The weather. First snow, a heat wave, a storm, and what it means for your customers.

Six posts that need no photo

Some weeks there is truly nothing to photograph. These work as a simple graphic in your colors:

• new opening hours or holiday hours
• an offer with an end date
• a sentence from a review
• a tip in one line
• a "did you know" about your trade
• a reminder to book before the busy season

A five-minute routine that ends the problem

Pick one moment in your week, say Tuesday after opening, and take five pictures: something finished, something in progress, a person, a detail and a ten-second clip. That is about twenty pieces of material a month. You will never post all of them, and that is the point: you get to choose.

What not to post when you are out of ideas

• Stock photos. They make a real business look like nobody's business.
• "Happy National Donut Day", unless you sell donuts.
• The same picture of your storefront for the fourth time.
• An apology for not posting. Just post.

Why it is worth the trouble

When Buffer analyzed 2.1 million Instagram posts, it found that accounts grew more slowly than usual in the weeks when they posted nothing at all. Quiet weeks cost you. A plain photo of today's work beats a perfect post you never make. How many posts a week is enough? We go through the numbers in How often should a small business post on social media?

And if the taking is fine but the making never happens, that is the part we do. You send whatever is on your phone, and we turn it into finished posts, graphics and short videos, published on schedule once you have approved them. See how it works.