Something to
post today.
Not fifty numbered ideas you have to read through to find one you can actually do. These are sorted by what is available to photograph right now — something that arrived, the shelf itself, a question a customer asked, the fact that it is Thursday.
Five questions, and one of them always has an answer.
Before reaching for an idea, ask the shop. One of these is true on any given day, and each one leads somewhere below.
What is new?
Anything off a pallet this week.
→ Something just arrivedWhat is overlooked?
A bottle people walk past.
→ The shelf itselfWhat was I asked?
A question from the counter.
→ Something worth knowingWhat day is it?
Thursday counts as an event.
→ Nearly the weekendWhat are people buying for?
A dinner, a gift, a season.
→ An occasion
Something just arrived.
The easiest posts in the shop, and the ones that keep an account worth following — this is the only content that is genuinely new every week.
Just landed
Out of the case and onto the shelf. Shoot it before it gets lost among the others — the arrival is the news.
First look
One bottle, close. Whatever you noticed when you opened the box is the caption.
Three things to know
Where it is from, what it is like, who it is for. Three short lines, no tasting-note poetry.
Why I ordered it
You chose this over something else. Say why. It is the most under-used post a shop owns.
Back in stock
The thing people kept asking for. Somebody has been waiting and will not otherwise know.
What's new this week
Everything that arrived, as one post. It sets an expectation that there is a reason to look every week.
The shelf itself.
Nothing has to arrive for these. Every one of them is made from stock that has been standing there for months, which is exactly why they are worth knowing.
Find something new
Photograph a whole shelf and point at one bottle on it. The shelf gives the scale; the point gives the story.
Shelf versus spotlight
Where it normally sits, then the same bottle shot properly. The change is the post.
The bottom shelf
The best value in the shop is rarely at eye level. That is a genuinely useful post.
This or that
Show two and ask which. The cheapest engagement post there is, and it tells you what to stock.
If you like this, try this
Start from a bottle everybody recognises. Lead to the one beside it that nobody buys.
Under the radar
Something customers walk past every day. Say what they are missing and where it is.
Something worth knowing.
The posts that make somebody trust the next recommendation. Keep them to one idea and one sentence — this is a shelf talker, not an article.
What the label word means
Blanco, reposado, añejo — one diagram, three words. People buy tequila without knowing which they want.
You are serving it too warm
Red wine at room temperature was decided in a colder room. Small, true, and immediately useful.
That is not a flavour
Hazy, small batch, reserve — words that sound like a promise and are not always one. Say so honestly.
What ageing changes
And what it does not. It stops people paying for a number they do not want.
How to serve it
One big cube, not four. Small, specific, and the sort of thing people repeat to somebody else.
The difference between these two
Bourbon and rye. Pilsner and lager. Two bottles, one line each.
It is nearly the weekend.
Thursday afternoon and Friday lunchtime are when somebody is deciding what to pick up. A post that lands after they have decided is a post that missed.
The weekend pick
One bottle, Friday afternoon, before people decide. Post it early enough to be a plan rather than a reminder.
Having people over?
What to buy when six are coming and you do not know what they drink. A real question, asked every Saturday.
What we are drinking
The counter's own Friday. The post that most reads like a person and least like a shop.
Something different this week
For the customer who buys the same thing every time and would happily be talked out of it.
An occasion somebody is having.
Not the drinking — the shopping. Somebody has a dinner on Saturday, a gift to buy, a cold week coming. Each of those is a person with a question your shop can answer.
Dinner for six
Somebody is cooking on Saturday and has not thought about what to open. Pick one thing and say what it is for.
A gift that looks considered
The gift problem: something that looks thought about, at a price nobody has to guess.
A cold evening in
The shop noticing the weather, which is most of what reads as being local.
What to eat with it
A pairing specific enough to be useful. Not “great with food”.
The holiday shelf
What you have put together and why, before everybody else starts asking.
A birthday bottle
Give the price bands. “Under thirty, under fifty, worth the fifty” removes the whole difficulty.
Nothing arrived
this week.
This is the week accounts go quiet, and the quiet is what people remember. It is also the week with the most material, because none of it depends on a delivery.
Three of the six sources above need nothing to have happened at all.
The shelf is still there. A customer still asked you something. It is still going to be Friday. A shop that only posts when a pallet arrives has tied its account to its suppliers’ schedule.
Photograph a shelf
Point at one bottle. That is a complete post and it took ninety seconds.
Answer last week's question
Somebody asked something at the counter. Others are wondering it too.
Say what you would take home
It requires no news, only an opinion, and the opinion is the product.
Show the shop
A display going up, a delivery coming in, the street outside. It is a place, not a catalogue.
Ideas are the easy half.
A list like this solves today. It does not solve the fortnight after next, which is where most shops actually stop.
Read next.
Liquor store Instagram marketing
The whole system: what to post, how often, and how to turn a shelf you already own into a month of content.
Social media calendar
What should decide the week: the forecast, thirty-nine dates worth planning for, what is on nearby, and the shop's own silence.
Alcohol social media rules
What Meta's policies actually require, what age-gating is and is not, and the checklist to run before you publish.
Alternatives
Six honest ways to run a liquor store's Instagram — do it yourself, Canva and a scheduler, a chatbot, a freelancer, an agency, or this.
Your shelf is
already stocked.
14 days free, 40 credits, nothing to install. Photograph the bottle nearest the till and see what comes back.
$49 a month, one plan · 14 days free first, a card when you make your first post and nothing taken until day 14 · one Instagram account per store