Creating Share-Worthy Instagram Content That Outperforms

Struggling to get your Instagram posts noticed, let alone shared? Wondering how top creators and brands consistently craft content that drives engagement and reach?

In this article, you'll discover proven strategies for creating high-performing Instagram content that grabs attention, encourages shares, and delivers real results so you can grow faster without chasing off-brand trends.

Why Share-Worthy Instagram Content Matters for Marketers

While social media algorithms play a significant role in content distribution, Johnson stresses that marketers must remember we're trying to reach real people. Real people find new content through shares.

Shareworthy content is the key to growth on Instagram because, according to Brock Johnson, Instagram strategist and host of the Build Your Tribe podcast, shares are how you go viral and reach new audiences. Shareworthy content isn't just important on Instagram, he says, but across every social media platform you use to reach customers in 2025.

Shares also significantly impact content performance more than other forms of engagement. Johnson's team conducted a study comparing the impact of one additional like, comment, save, or share on Instagram. The results were eye-opening. One like, comment, or save generated an additional 50 views, but one share generated anywhere from 150 to up to 400 additional views.

This multiplier effect is what makes shareworthy content so powerful for account growth. When just one of those 400 people also shares your content, it creates a snowball effect that can lead to your most viral posts.

#1: Content Strategy: The Three Types of Instagram Content

Most marketers and social media managers create content that falls into three main categories:

Promotional Content: This is content designed to make sales, with the primary purpose of converting followers into customers. While necessary for business, these posts are rarely shareworthy.

Educational/Valuable Content: These posts share quick tips, information, hacks, or strategies. While valuable to your audience, Johnson compares these posts to textbooks in libraries: “Very, very valuable. But how often are you getting your friends recommending you, ‘Hey, you got to read this textbook'?” Taking the textbook analogy further, Johnson reminds marketers that it doesn't matter how fantastic your content is if no one is in the library to see it.

Share-Worthy Content: This type of content is specifically designed to be shared and reach new audiences. Johnson views shareworthy content as “the way to reach this ideal audience, bring them into the classroom, sit them down, bring them to your account, bring them to your page, bring them to your business.”

Once you've attracted this audience with shareworthy content, you can then nurture them with educational content and convert them with promotional content.

The Ideal Content Mix for Instagram

There's no one-size-fits-all approach to your content mix, which should vary depending on your current business cycle. Johnson explains:

“If you're in a stage where you are actively launching and promoting something, let's say you have a new course or a new workshop that you want people to attend or sign up for, well, then during that period, I would scale back on your shareworthy posts because you're not necessarily trying to reach a new audience during that period. You're trying to convert your existing audience.”

During active promotions, Johnson recommends scaling back shareworthy content to approximately 20-25% of your posts.

Conversely, during periods when you're not actively promoting, you might increase shareworthy content to help boost engagement and attract new followers.

Typically, around 50 to 60% of Johnson's posts are shareworthy content. The remaining posts are divided between promotional and educational content.

#2: The Five Types of Share-Worthy Content for Instagram

Johnson identifies five specific categories of content that consistently generate shares on Instagram:

Motivational/Inspirational Content

Motivation is always in demand because it naturally ebbs and flows. In today's often negative social media landscape, motivational content provides a refreshing pattern interrupt that people want to share.

The key is ensuring your inspirational content relates to your niche. Johnson offers an example from his own account: “Mr. Beast posted over a thousand videos to get his first one hundred subscribers. Mel Robbins posted over three hundred times on Instagram before she hit 10K followers. Me, Brock Johnson, I posted for nine years before I had my first viral post.”

This motivational reminder that success is rarely achieved overnight resonates with his audience of Instagram marketers and creators while remaining relevant to his niche.

Community/Call-to-Arms Content

This content type gets your community involved in a cause or movement. Johnson cites the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge as a classic example of community content that went viral.

While you won't post community content daily (as it would lose impact), occasional community-focused content can be extremely shareworthy. Examples include:

• Charitable causes relevant to your industry
• Awareness campaigns
• Celebratory events like national awareness days
• Industry-specific challenges

For example, if you're a fitness coach during Mental Health Awareness Month, you might create content about mental health in relation to body image and positive self-talk in fitness settings.

Relatable Content

The most common type of shareworthy content typically takes the form of memes, jokes, and humor that resonates with your audience's experiences.

The key to creating highly relatable content is specificity. As Johnson explains: “Relatability comes from specificity. The more specific you can get…the more people will see it, and they'll think, ‘Oh my gosh, I thought I was alone. I thought I was the only person who felt this way.'”

Johnson offers an example using the Anger character from the movie Inside Out. Rather than simply posting an image with text saying “Me when I'm angry,” which isn't very specific or shareworthy, he suggests something more targeted:

“When I just sent my post back for the seventeenth round of revisions to my boss, and he's continuing to add more changes, and now the trend is over.”

Or:

“Me, when I spent three hours working on an Instagram reel that got seven likes and two spam comments.”

The specificity makes these posts relatable to anyone who has experienced these frustrations, increasing the likelihood they'll share it with colleagues facing similar challenges.

Controversial Content

Controversial content doesn't mean being slanderous, offensive, or purposely provocative. Instead, it means sharing “niche-related unpopular opinions.”

“You're talking about things that you truly believe. You're dispelling common myths in your industry. You're talking about outdated advice. You're talking about things that you believe in that other leaders in your industry disagree with,” he explains.

An example might be taking a stand on the use of M-dashes in writing despite criticisms that they signal AI-generated content. This type of post often generates shares from people who agree with your stance but perhaps weren't bold enough to express it themselves.

Controversial content also tends to generate comments and discussion—both from those who agree and disagree—which boosts engagement and visibility in the algorithm.

Timely Content

Timely content requires the most adaptability and speed, which is why many larger brands struggle with it. This category includes trending topics, cultural moments, and time-sensitive events that can quickly lose relevance.

The key to successful, timely content is speed. If you wait too long, the cultural moment has passed, and your content will fall flat. Johnson describes this as “niche adjacent posts” (NAP), where you connect the trending topic back to your specific industry or niche.

Examples include:

• Super Bowl moments and memes
• Trending audio formats
• Popular AI trends
• TV show finale reactions
• Viral cultural moments

#3: Tips to Create Effective Share-worthy Instagram Content

Instagram Content Inspiration

Look Outside Your Industry: “I think a huge mistake that a lot of marketers are making is that they're looking within their niche,” Johnson explains. Instead, look at what's working in other industries and verticals for inspiration, then adapt those approaches to your niche.

Study Your Past Successes: Review your analytics to identify which of your posts have generated the most shares in the past. Consider how you might recreate similar content or even repost the original, as many followers may have missed it the first time. Instagram makes this easy through its insights, where you can sort posts by shares received over the past 90 days. There's typically a strong correlation between views and shares, so highly viewed posts have often been widely shared.

Use AI to Generate Ideas: Use AI to help refine your shareworthy content creation. For example, feed your most successful posts into AI to generate similar but modified ideas. You can also have AI generate alternative ways to express your ideas more clearly, asking it to simplify complex wording or improve sentence structure.

Choose the Right Content Format

While research suggests video-based Reels receive more shares than static content, Johnson notes that his own experience sometimes contradicts this, with images and carousels often outperforming videos.

His recommendation: “Why not both?” For every shareworthy idea, consider creating multiple versions:

• A spoken reel where you directly address the camera
• A reel with text overlay and background music
• A still image with the same message
• A carousel exploring the concept further

This approach allows you to reach different segments of your audience who prefer different content formats.

Keep Your Captions Simple

Johnson believes captions are somewhat overrated for shareworthy content: “According to our recent polls, less than 50% of people who see your post will begin reading the caption, and less than 10% of people will make it to the end of the caption.”

Johnson keeps captions for relatable posts short and sweet—often just one or two sentences. In fact, when analyzing his top 30 most-shared posts, he noted that only one or two have a caption that is longer than two sentences.

His most successful posts sometimes have captions that are simply a laughing emoji or a brief call to action like “share this if you agree.”

#4: Sustainable Instagram Growth: How to Invite New Viewers to Become Followers

With Instagram's algorithm changes, most creators now find that 40-70% of their views come from non-followers rather than existing followers. This shift requires a strategic approach to converting viewers into followers.

Johnson recommends two approaches to inviting follows:

• Periodic Reintroduction Reels: Approximately every 60 days, create a complete reintroduction reel where the entire purpose is to introduce yourself, explain what you do, and invite new viewers to follow you. Johnson recommends pinning your most recent reintroduction post to your profile.
• Embedded Invitations in Content: Include a short verbal mention at the end of a reel, text on the screen during the video, a brief statement in your caption, or visual prompts at the bottom of the screen.

As you deliver your call-to-follow, instead of simply saying “follow for more,” provide specific reasons why someone should follow you:

• Follow if you learned something new.
• Don't forget to follow for more daily tips.
• If you want better ideas, hit that follow button because I post them every single day.

The key is to vary your approach. If every video ends with the same follow request, it becomes white noise that viewers tune out.

Other Notes From This Episode

• Connect with Michael Stelzner @Stelzner on Instagram and @Mike_Stelzner on X.
• Watch this interview and other exclusive content from Social Media Examiner on YouTube.

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✋🏽 If you enjoyed this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast, please head over to Apple Podcasts, leave a rating, write a review, and subscribe.

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