25+ Instagram Carousel Ideas to Drive Maximum Engagement
Do you want to create stunning Instagram carousels that grab attention? There are plenty of Instagram carousel ideas that you can use. But here is a thing: creating content without a strategy won’t bring results.
Even when you work with carousel ideas, it’s essential to be aware of your niche, target audience, their interests, and problems. That’s why you need a content mix for various IG carousels that does not seem repetitive and keeps your audience engaged.
Instagram Carousel Ideas
Branding & Relatability Instagram Carousel Ideas
- Share Your Brand Story
- Share Brand Values
- Behind-the-scenes
- Support a Cause
Educational & Authority-Building Instagram Carousel Examples
- Step-by-step Tutorials
- Explain a Process
- How-to Guide
- Tips & Tricks
- Industry Insights
Product & Service Promotion Carousel Examples
- Product Showcase
- New Launch or Collection
- Product or Service Features Breakdown and Benefits
- Update Release
Active Community-Building Carousel Examples
- Giveaways & Contests
- “This or That” style interactive posts
- Challenges
Conversion-Focused Carousel Examples for Products & Services
- Before & After Transformations
- Testimonials and Reviews
- Case Studies with Client Results
Further, explore twenty-nine ideas, along with suitable Instagram carousel post examples.
For your convenience, we have categorized the ideas into various broad content areas, highlighting the type of goal they help you achieve. Towards the end of the blog, you can also explore some pro tips about choosing the ideas that align with your online presence and goals.
So let’s dive right into these IG carousel ideas and explore how to use carousel on Instagram in the best way possible.
Table of Contents
- Branding & Relatability Instagram Carousel Ideas
- Educational & Authority-Building Instagram Carousel Examples
- Product & Service Promotion Carousel Examples
- Active Community-Building Instagram Carousel Ideas
- Conversion-Focused Carousel Examples for Products & Services
- Tips for Choosing the Instagram Carousel Ideas
- FAQs
Branding & Relatability Instagram Carousel Ideas
Goal: To strengthen brand identity or personality and build an emotional connection. It’s also apt for brand advocacy and to stay on top of your audience’s minds.
When creating carousels for your brand, it’s crucial to have a clear understanding of your brand’s position. Is it at the awareness stage? Or you have already established a strong brand presence and want to keep your audience engaged? To keep things sorted, here are some of the Instagram carousel ideas centered around branding and relatability.
1. Share Your Brand Story
Your brand story helps your audience understand your vision and identity. Moreover, it acts as a mark of authenticity while building trust for your brand. To tell your story, start with a strong hook and incorporate visual storytelling in a logical flow with every slide.
When creating the slides, aim to summarize the brand story in 3-10 slides, incorporating relevant pictures or videos. Also, remember to end the carousel with a strong CTA to engage your audience.
For instance, take a look at this carousel post illustrating a brand story. The first slide creates intrigue with the text while unfolding the idea behind building the brand from scratch. On top of that, they use photo collage aesthetics to showcase the journey from behind the scenes, from designing to customer testimonials.
Another interesting aspect is their customer-first approach, which keeps customers at the centre of their vision and includes a generous discount offer.
2. Share Brand Values
If your brand contributes to a positive impact on the world, you should share this with your audience. But why? Around 11.3% of consumers are willing to pay 31-50% more if your brand has a positive impact. Overall, people perceive your brand as someone who cares for the community, environment, and goodness.
On that note, let’s take a look at this example. So first, the carousel post talks about the issue, followed by the impact and their contribution as the solution. You can adopt a similar storyline, strategically placing your brand values into the narrative.
3. Behind-the-scenes Instagram Carousel Post
Behind-the-scenes carousels are yet another way to retain authenticity in your brand. You can post a variety of things when it comes to posting the BTS content. It can be a day in the life of an employee, a glimpse into the studio or workspace, or the creative process of a product from scratch.
On that note, you should also incorporate a mix of short videos and images to create a narrative. A fun BTS post can be an ice breaker with your audience, creating awareness about your brand, whereas a sneak peek into the craftsmanship helps to build trust. For example, here is the creation process of Cartier’s product with attention to detail in design.
4. Dedicate an IG Carousel to Support a Cause
Want to show what your brand really cares about? Show it with the CSR initiative and social awareness posts regarding environmental initiatives, community support, ethical practices, etc. Customers often choose brands aligned with their values and remain loyal to them.
On that note, let’s see what Levi’s did with this carousel post. It highlights how the brand has always supported same sex couples even when they had no rights. So what does the audience perceive? With this simple Instagram slide post, Levi’s echoes the values of equality, standing by the Pride community.
5. Important Announcements with Instagram Carousels
Carousels on Instagram are significant for announcements. Whether you want to give a sneak peek into your new store or inform about major product updates, carousels give you ample room to share more.
Take this price update announcement carousel post. While explaining the changes, the brand incorporates the cause and effect of the price update with the affordability factor.
6. Carousel Posts with Photo Dumps
Ever come across a bunch of pictures in a carousel post? That’s a photo dump. Unlike perfectly curated posts, these are raw and unfiltered photos without any particular agenda. So why post them in the first place? Because they make your brand much more relatable without trying so hard for it.
Especially when your audience is the young crowd, photo dumps can make your brand more humane. The best part? There is no hard and fast rule for it. Take a look at this carousel from life at Google. Although the page is about career opportunities and work culture, the photo dumps build a fun brand personality.
7. Following Trends on Instagram
If you are running out of ideas, jump onto some ongoing trend and leverage the engagement. Tapping into trending content helps you to get viral or get noticed in the reels and Explore sections. On top of that, it helps your brand to shrug off the seriousness.
However, you should be careful while following the trends, as it largely depends on your brand personality and target audience. For example, consider the ‘you look happier’ trend, which highlights customers using the products.
Educational & Authority-Building Instagram Carousel Examples
Goal: To build trust, credibility, and thought leadership by showing expertise in a niche. It also helps in targeting the right audience, nurturing leads, and retaining followers.
Value-based content makes your carousels relevant for your audience. There are plenty of different ways you can create educational content. It can be a how-to guide, step-by-step tutorial, quick tips, or myth busters that help.
Whatever you choose, remember to divide the information into concise and digestible chunks while maintaining the flow of the slides. Take a look at these carousel post examples to get a better idea of educational content.
8. Step-by-step Tutorials
Step-by-step tutorials are easy to plan, as you can dedicate each slide to a step. You can explain with the help of short sentences or simply show the step-by-step visuals, keeping a consistent layout. These instagram carousel ideas can be micro tutorials (3 slides), standard tutorials (5-6 slides), or long tutorials (8-10 slides).
For example, you can observe in this tutorial how pictures are self-explanatory in every slide. Simply arranging the slides in a sequence gives an idea of every step.
However, you can also explain the tutorial steps using text content. If you need an eye-catching layout for your text content, consider this design from DocHipo’s Instagram Carousel Templates. It helps you easily create carousels with standard IG carousel sizes and professional layouts.
Take a look at this carousel template design with organized typography.
9. Explain a Process with an Instagram Post Slider
Explaining any process that your audience will share or save requires a knack for simplifying complex stuff. Even if the process is lengthy, you should sum it up in 6-8 slides. You can cover the process in steps to design your carousel differently.
Now, let’s see how you can do so with this example. In this Instagram carousel, rather than covering a step, every slide deals with a theme. The best part is that the text is short and to the point without unnecessary information.
When you want to simplify a process with Instagram carousels, less is more. That’s why you need designs with minimum distractions. Here is a carousel design from Process Instagram Carousel Templates.
10. How-to Guide Carousel Social Media Post
If you want to teach, engage, and provide real value to your audience, the “How-to” guides in Instagram carousels are one of the most effective ways. These carousels help you establish your presence as thought leadership in your niche.
When designing the slides, focus on providing actionable tips. Here is an inspiring example from Hootsuite about turning insights into actionable tips. That way, the brand can showcase its expertise in its niche.
Keeping a consistent layout helps your audience to slide through carousels on Instagram. If you want layouts that strike at once, switch to How-to Instagram Carousel Templates to design your carousels. Here is a glimpse of one such template.
11. Tips & Tricks Carousel Posts
Tips and tricks are another popular content format for Instagram carousels as they deliver quick and practical solutions to your problems. Likewise, you can share tried and tested hacks, pro tips, cheat sheets, etc, to encourage high engagement.
The key is to keep each slide focused on one clear point, use simple visuals, and end with a strong call-to-action that nudges followers to comment, save, or try the tips themselves.
Here is a simple Instagram carousel example of shared tips about decluttering. Notice how design, color palette, and fonts align with the message. And the best part is that the tips shared here are precise and easy to implement in everyday routine.
If you’re looking for designs that can easily align with your Instagram carousel ideas, here is a template for you.
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12. Instagram Carousel Example with Industry Insights
Keeping up with industry trends and updates is a hassle for many people. However, you can grab this opportunity to do the heavy lifting. And it keeps your audience loyal to you as your content helps them to stay updated.
By highlighting data, expert opinions, case studies, and future predictions, you help your followers stay ahead of the curve. It builds authority, trust, and credibility—making your audience see you as a reliable source for meaningful updates, not just promotions.
13. Listicles or Checklists Instagram Slides
Listicles and checklists help you to keep info at your fingertips. They break down information into bite-sized, scannable points, making it easy for your audience to save and revisit later. On top of that, the swipeable nature of carousels aligns perfectly with this type of content.
Here is a ‘things to do’ social media carousel example that travel businesses often use for various destinations. Plus, you can pair your listicles with eye-catching pictures to keep your viewers swiping.
14. Myths vs. Facts Instagram Carousel Idea
This content type grabs attention with a bold claim or common belief (the myth) and then immediately builds authority by debunking it with a fact. Such carousel post ideas help you earn the trust of the audience as they perceive you as the source of truth. That’s why you should back your facts with solid research.
The hook ‘myth vs facts’ itself creates the buzz, inducing curiosity to swipe the slides. If you’re looking to do it like a pro, check out this myth-buster carousel post that tackles common myths with clear, concise points. Such IG carousel ideas work best when you add your own brand value within the facts.
15. FAQs Carousel Slides on Instagram
FAQs carousels work best when your audience is giving second thoughts about your product or having doubts about your brand. To prepare FAQs, consider your brand position and target audience. If you are a new brand, you can create an FAQs carousel to address queries related to shipping, returns, services, process, etc.
Additionally, you can create FAQs for a newly launched product or address questions you regularly receive in the comments section. To give you a better idea, here are some FAQs that Cambridge University answered about the admissions process. You can notice how the carousel example tackles every question following the sequence of the procedure.
16. Tell What’s New and Trending
The Instagram audience is always looking for the next new trend that can hook more people. But going viral should not be your sole objective, as it does not necessarily translate to engagement from your target audience. When creating a carousel about what’s new and trending, consider who it is relevant to.
At the end of the day, your page should deliver value to the audience in your niche. For example, this Instagram post example for carousel might appeal to a creator, brand strategist, or marketer. Plus, every slide explains actionable tips with hook ideas, making it worth saving for the future.
If you want to create a similar Instagram carousel design, here is a suitable template that you can use.
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17. Do This, Not That Instagram Carousels
You’ve probably seen IG carousels highlighting common mistakes or the right way to do something. ‘Do this, not that’ is quite similar yet stands out for grabbing attention. This type of Instagram carousel idea works best with the ‘show, don’t tell’ narrative technique.
To illustrate the carousel aesthetic, here is an example of such a carousel post about interior design. Every picture speaks for itself, showcasing the idea. On top of that, the pro tip about what not to do provides additional clarity.
18. Data Breakdowns
Data breakdowns are more than just dumping stats and numbers; carousels provide ample space to share them effectively. All you have to do is simplify complex data (stats, survey results, market trends, comparisons) into visual, swipeable slides. Plus, they are easy to consume, shareable pieces that get you more engagement.
On top of that, these carousel posts assist with authority building when you showcase your expertise by backing content with credible data. To illustrate, here is an example with an attention-grabbing data breakdown. Note how the slides emphasize important facts with large fonts and data visualizations.
Product & Service Promotion Carousel Examples
Goals: To showcase products and services with their benefits. These types of carousels also help your customers to stay informed about your new updates and launches.
Product and service promotions in your Instagram carousels help to engage with potential customers directly. After building a rapport with your audience, you would expect them to buy your products. By presenting multiple angles, use cases, or updates in one post, you make your product story more compelling and memorable for Instagram carousel ads.
It’s up to you how you want to showcase your products and services. You can directly show them whatever you offer without beating around the bush. Alternatively, you can craft a story that reveals how you solve a problem. So let’s see how you can promote your offerings through these Instagram carousel ideas.
19. Product Showcases Slides
Want to hook your audience with your products? Show them in the best way possible with a carousel post slide. On top of that, you can take the help of professionals to capture stunning pictures highlighting the design, benefits, and features.
Now, there are different ways to post on Instagram to showcase what you have got. You can focus on the use case, lifestyle of your audience, thought process, and a lot more.
Here is a carousel example from Nike with a mix of images and videos. What grabs our attention is that the entire carousel post helps us feel the product’s lightweight, premium quality without even touching it.
20. New Launch or Collection IG Slider Post
Sharing a new launch or collection works best for carousel posts. You can either use the slides to share the details about a single product or post a collection of different products in a variety. Whatever you do, the whole purpose of using the carousel is to give a better idea of your new products.
If you are still wondering what is an Instagram carousel example for this type of carousel content, check out this example from The Whole Truth Foods. The best part is how they shared the details of ingredients and real-life experience with a testimonial.
21. Update Release with Details in IG Carousels
Brands, creators, and businesses use this type of Instagram carousel idea to announce something important, such as a product launch, feature update, event, collection drop, or service change. But the thing is, you need to do it right. You can create hype around it only if your audience understands how it can help them.
That’s why you need to walk your audience through what’s new, why it matters, and how they can access it. For instance, here is an IG carousel example from HubSpot. It creates a buildup through data and explains how the new updates address these issues. The trick is simple yet effective.
22. Swipe to Reveal Instagram Slides
A ‘Swipe to reveal’ is a clever carousel post that builds curiosity among the audience, much like flipping through the pages of a story or a puzzle. Nonetheless, you need to create a narrative including a suspense element, leading your audience to the final surprise.
For this, you need a strong hook for the first slide to create a mystery. With each passing slide, give context, hints, or partial answers, nudging the viewer to keep swiping. When your viewer reaches the last slide, offer a CTA to encourage them to take the next step.
For a better idea, swipe through this Instagram carousel that lets you explore the untapped destinations in Europe. Also, notice how the carousel progresses to offer different perspectives of the destination.
23. Product or Service Features Breakdown and Benefits
Dedicating a carousel to a product or service breakdown helps your potential customers to better understand the benefits and value. You can discuss any unique feature, customer experience, key statistic, or outcome that sets you apart.
While doing so, remember to post high-quality photos and videos that give a multi-dimensional perspective of your product. Here is one such example of a product feature breakdown. Notice how the entire layout cleverly highlights the product with visuals and punchy text points.
Active Community-Building Instagram Carousel Ideas
Goal: To encourage direct audience participation and conversations that help you build a community.
Active engagement goes beyond likes and comments. It’s more about sparking conversations, showcasing people, and making followers feel like insiders. You can do it in several ways, such as hosting challenges and contests, organizing giveaways, and conducting polls.
Carousels on Instagram work well for this type of content, as you can break the steps into digestible chunks without overwhelming the audience with the rules. The best part is that it helps you to build a community with potential customers without being too salesy.
24. Giveaways & Contests
Giveaways are one of the best ways to grow your audience and build a community. To do so, first, you need to lay down the rules for the contest. Next, you can add visuals related to the contest and dedicate each slide to explain the entire process, including the rules. Here is an example of a giveaway with a captivating hook about the winning prize.
25. This or That Style Interactive Posts
This or That” style carousels are fun, interactive, and fantastic for sparking engagement on Instagram. This type of carousel post helps boost engagement and understand the audience’s taste. With such posts, people perceive your page as community-driven and playful.
When designing the ‘this or that’ carousel, dedicate each slide to soliciting opinions on two choices within your niche. For more details, refer to this post, which provides options for various types of real estate aesthetics.
26. Instagram Carousel Posts Hosting Challenges
Challenges are another fun activity to engage your audience for a long time. You can post a challenge with a prize and a deadline to encourage people to participate. Also, explain the challenge step by step and keep the instructions clear and visually structured.
To make your carousel captivating, add thematic visual elements along with the hook. For inspiration, here is a carousel example with an engaging hook and visuals. Likewise, use consistent design & branding for all challenge updates and encourage participants to tag friends to join in.
Conversion-Focused Carousel Examples for Products & Services
Goal: To persuade your audience toward clicks, sign-ups, and purchases rather than just engagement.
Every carousel post on your Instagram page gives a glimpse into your brand. So far, we have discussed various content types that showcase brand personality, authority, product benefits, and more. When it comes to making conversions, numerous factors come into play.
Your potential customer is looking for social proof, user experience, client stories, or visible results to make the final decision. People making the purchase decisions firmly believe in ‘seeing is believing’. On that note, here are a few Instagram carousel post ideas that can help.
27. Before & After Transformations
The transformation carousels are best suited to flaunt your product or service in action. The side-by-side comparison helps you better understand the changes you can offer. Just ensure that the before and after images you use stand in stark contrast to each other.
Have a better understanding with this example of IG carousel. For the renovation business, this type of carousel post speaks for itself. As an audience, you can assess the quality and results of the service provider.
28. Testimonials and Reviews
Do you want to brag about your product without coming off as a show-off? Just go for customer testimonials and reviews. Along with that, it’s a powerful social proof content format that helps build trust, credibility, and relatability for your brand.
Testimonials align well with the Instagram carousel ideas. You can dedicate each slide to a review with the reviewer’s name, photo (if permitted), and rating. Here is one such example of an IG carousel illustrating testimonials of various clients.
29. Case Studies with Client Success Story
When you have played an essential role in your client’s success story, it’s worth sharing that. It works as social proof while also educating your audience on what’s possible when they work with you. But don’t just make it about yourself; keep your client as the hero of the story.
Take inspiration from this Duolingo carousel post about a client’s success. Likewise, include their testimonials and highlight the numbers, growth stats, or transformation. You can also tell a little bit about their journey to make it relatable for the potential client.
Tips for Choosing the Instagram Carousel Ideas
You have come so far tracing a long list of IG carousel ideas. However, creating engaging carousel content depends on several key factors. So, how to make a good carousel on Instagram? Here are some tips that will help you align your content with these ideas.
Match the Carousel Post Ideas with Your Goal
First, you need to understand what your goals are and at what stage your brand stands. It’s easier if you think about the marketing funnels as illustrated below.
Next, you need to decide what you want: reach, engagement, leads, or sales. For example, educational carousels work for engagement, while testimonials work for sales.
Know Your Target Audience on Instagram
It’s easier to understand the demographics and interests of your target audience with the help of analytics in Instagram settings. Once you analyse your audience, you need to identify their niche, needs, and problems. Rather than focusing on promoting yourself, ask, “Will my followers find this helpful, fun, or inspiring?’
Balance Content Types for Different Instagram Carousel Ideas
You have an abundance of ideas for IG carousels, but how often should you post? And which carousel content type should you prefer more? There is no absolute answer for that. However, you can develop a content mix framework, including educational (30-40%), entertaining or relatable (20-25%), promotional (20-25%), and conversion-centric ideas (15-20%).
This keeps your carousel feed fresh and avoids looking too salesy. To keep things sorted, you can dedicate four days a week to every carousel idea. Over time, track engagement for each piece of content and adjust the frequency of various content types accordingly.
Maintain Consistency in Brand Design, Voice, and Personality
Not every type of IG carousel idea will suit your brand. If you are a fun brand, creating relatable carousel content will naturally align with your voice. Consistency is what makes your carousels recognizable and trustworthy.
So first decide whether you are witty, professional, inspiring, or casual. Next, select your brand archetype or personality, and then decide on three to four key traits, such as bold, creative, helpful, and relatable. Remember, every carousel should reflect at least one. Stick to it across captions, headlines, and CTAs.
Leverage Trends Wisely in Your Instagram Slide Post
Jumping on every trendy carousel idea without a strategy won’t give you results. That’s why you need to do it with a plan. So first, pick a trend that will align with your niche. You can assess with these questions:
- Does this trend reflect my brand personality?
- Can I tie it back to my audience’s interests/problems?
- Will it look authentic or forced?
Next, you can give your own twist to the trends with values, photo dumps, checklists, etc.
Play to Your Strengths while Creating Carousels
Identifying your strengths will help you to work in a direction while creating carousels. Rather than trying every type of Instagram carousel post idea, understand what you are good at and double down on that.
If you’re great at storytelling, try case studies or recaps; likewise, if you have a sound knowledge about anything, share stats, insights, or comparisons. Whatever you do, remember to provide value to your audience.
Test & Analyze Various Instagram Carousels
Try different ideas and track performance by analyzing engagement, including saves, shares, likes, and comments. In addition to these metrics, you can also track the reach and completion rate of the carousels to see what actively engages the audience. Based on your analysis, focus on what’s working to achieve your goals.
Final Thoughts
Now you are all set to create content using these Instagram carousel ideas. Before you jump to do that, follow the pro tips and gain understanding about your audience, brand, goals, and online presence. Also, jot down crucial topics under different content categories and strategize the carousel content plan.
When you’re ready to create carousels for Instagram, DocHipo is the best ally as an Instagram Carousel Maker. The tool is packed with professional templates, stand-out design assets, and advanced AI tools for seamless design. The best part is that you get niche-specific templates for process, how-to guides, tips, and more that require minimal customization. Sign up with DocHipo and create stunning carousels today!
FAQs
What content works best in carousels?
There are a variety of content types that work while creating Instagram carousels. Some of these are:
- Product launches and updates
- How-to guides and tutorials
- Feature breakdowns and benefits
- Before and after transformations
- tips and tricks
- Case studies & success stories
- Behind-the-scenes content
- Myth vs facts
How to make carousels go viral?
Here are some of the tips that can help you go viral:
- Follow viral trends
- Add popular music
- Optimize slides for shareability
- Pick a format and test first to check what gets the engagement
