The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Content Formats
Thursday 25th September 2025
by Beth Perrin
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When social media first came onto the scene in the 90s, users only had the ability to upload plain text posts and simple photos for their friends and family to see. However, over the years, each platform’s capabilities have massively expanded - and plenty of new ones have arrived! Today, there are many different types of content that can be posted on users’ pages and profiles in order to achieve various goals, and to encourage audience interaction.
While they may not all be suitable for your business, it’s important to include a mixture of content formats in your marketing strategy. Otherwise, your pages may start to feel limited and repetitive, and you may find yourself falling behind on key trends. Read on to discover our ultimate guide to social media content types and learn which ones may be appropriate for your brand.
Text Posts
Starting with the basics, text posts are of course straightforward posts that only contain copy, without any images or videos being attached. These can be shared on Facebook, X, Threads and LinkedIn. Because they aren’t particularly eye-catching, text posts tend to be much less engaging than those with images or videos, so we would recommend only using them when you need to make a quick announcement or share a brief update.
Text posts are also fine for occasions where you want to share a link to an external webpage, such as a blog post on your website. If you add a URL to your post, a link preview (called a ‘card’ on X) will be generated using an image from the webpage you’re linking to (usually the biggest or most prominent image on the page), giving it a visual element to catch your audience’s attention.
Photos & Images
Adding a photo or another type of image, such as a branded graphic, to your social media posts can massively boost your reach and engagement levels. In fact, Facebook posts with images see 2.3 times more engagement than those without, LinkedIn posts with images have a 98% higher comment rate on average, and X posts with images are three times more likely to receive engagement.
Brands with a specific product or location to focus on should ideally have regular photoshoots with a professional photographer. These include:
• eCommerce brands
• Food and drink brands
• Restaurants, bars and cafés
• Hotels
• Tourist attractions
This will enable you to assemble a library of high quality, up-to-date images of your products, services or location that you can then share onto your socials, either on their own or with some branding elements added to them.
Carousels
On social media, a carousel is a post which contains multiple images and/or videos that are all the same size and shape and can be scrolled or swiped through. They can either be completely separate images that don’t tie together, or one long image that has been split up into squares to tell a connected story.
Carousels are available on the following platforms:
• Instagram (organic (unpaid) format)
• Instagram (ad (paid) format)
• Facebook (paid ads only)
• LinkedIn (paid ads only)
• TikTok (using Photo Mode)
Organic carousels feature one caption for the whole carousel, whereas carousel ads can have a separate caption, CTA button and link for each image.
Videos
86% of social media users say they would like to see more videos from brands, so if your brand isn’t sharing any video content at the moment, you could be missing out on a huge opportunity to engage and impress your audience. Although short-form videos are rapidly becoming the preferred video format, there’s definitely still some value to be found in longer videos too, with 51% of YouTube users confirming that they’re most likely to engage with brands’ long-form videos
While mobile phones are now the most commonly used device for accessing social media, it’s still a good idea to post a mixture of both vertical (9:16) and horizontal (16:9) videos to suit both desktop and mobile screen sizes. However, bear in mind that this only applies to Facebook, X and LinkedIn - steer clear of sharing horizontal videos on Instagram and TikTok, as vertical videos are of course a priority on these platforms. More on these below!
Reels & TikToks
Reels (available on both Instagram and Facebook) and TikToks are full-screen, vertical, short-form videos that are great for giving your audience a brief, fast-paced glimpse into your business, and for participating in viral trends. Songs, soundbites and other audio clips can be added to your Reels and TikToks if you don’t want to use the original audio from your video, and they can be decorated with filters, stickers and other fun elements.
58% of viewers will watch the entirety of a business’s video if it’s less than 60 seconds long and 66% of consumers agree that short-form video is the most engaging type of social media content, so if you haven’t yet delved into creating these types of videos, now is definitely the time to get started!
Stories
Originating on Snapchat in 2013 but now also available on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, Stories are full-screen, vertical images and videos that stay on your page for 24 hours before disappearing, making them the perfect place to share behind-the-scenes clips and everyday moments. They can be viewed by tapping on your profile picture when visiting your page, or at the top of the home feed.
Due to their temporary nature, users only have a set period to engage with Stories, so they’re a good way to keep people coming back to see more. You can add stickers and interactive elements for your audience to participate in such as polls, question boxes and countdowns, and on Instagram, you can add your favourite Stories to your Highlights as a way of preserving them after their original 24 hour viewing period.
Polls
Polls can be posted on X, LinkedIn and Instagram Stories using the poll sticker. They’re a great way to ask your audience questions and see how they’re feeling about specific topics and ideas. On X, your polls can last from five minutes to seven days, whereas on LinkedIn, the default duration is one week. On Instagram Stories, your poll will end when your Story expires - so 24 hours later.
Polls aren’t available on Facebook, however you can create one manually by asking people to use the reaction emojis to vote for various options, or to comment with their favourite option from a list.
Articles
Articles are useful for sharing information, insights and other educational content with your audience, and are a good way to repurpose blog posts from your website.
LinkedIn has a dedicated article publishing feature where you can write and share long-form articles (up to 110,000 characters) that can include images and embedded content, such as LinkedIn posts (and posts from other social platforms). You can also mention other LinkedIn users, companies and hashtags within your articles. Depending on your profile settings, your articles may be searchable both on and off LinkedIn, so they’re great for SEO purposes too.
On Facebook, you can include just over 63,000 characters in a standard post, and X users who pay for an X Premium subscription can tweet up to 25,000 characters - so technically you can share articles on these platforms too. However, we would recommend keeping your Facebook and X posts fairly brief, and instead linking to your blog posts if you want to share articles here.
Shoppable Posts
Shoppable posts are images, videos and Stories that include tagged products from your social storefront which can be purchased directly from social media. They’re available on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, and if each platform’s checkout tool is available in your region, you can even allow customers to pay for their items without having to leave the app.
Alternatively, if you haven’t set up a social media shop yet, you can create shoppable content by simply including links to your products in your posts - this means people can click through to your website and make a purchase there instead. We would recommend keeping the amount of links in your posts to a minimum, and always make sure to use a URL shortener such as Bitly to tidy up your links and prevent your posts from looking spammy or overcrowded.
UGC
UGC stands for user generated content and refers to any photos, videos, testimonials and reviews posted online by your customers that show off your brand’s products or services. If you see something you’d like to share onto your own page, ask the customer for permission and wait for them to agree before downloading, screenshotting or directly sharing their content.
If you choose to download their content instead of sharing it directly, consider adding your own branded elements, such as your company logo or a border that incorporates your brand colours when you reupload it. Don’t forget to also tag or mention the original poster in your caption so people know who the content belongs to.
Millennials in particular trust UGC 50% more than content generated by brands, and 79% of people say that it highly impacts their purchasing decisions. UGC is an excellent way to show your audience how your product or service functions in a real-life setting, helping you build social proof, foster authenticity and set realistic expectations for your customers.
Ads
Social media ads are posts that have been paid for by the advertiser in order to boost their reach and impact, and to increase their chances of achieving a specific outcome - such as:
• Brand awareness
• Website traffic
• Product purchases
• Service or newsletter sign-ups
• App downloads
• Page likes or follows
• Event attendance
On most platforms, you’ll usually see a ‘sponsored’ or ‘promoted’ message above or below an ad to help you identify that the content has been paid to appear in your feed. Ads come in many different shapes and sizes, with each platform offering a wide range of targeting options and budgeting tools, but unlike organic posts, they don’t appear on your page (other than boosted posts) - instead, they’re shown to a specific audience that you get to choose during the setup process.
Infographics
Infographics are an excellent choice for B2B businesses and any other brands that deal with statistics, educational or instructive content, and other information that would otherwise have to be posted as plain text.
They make data easier to digest and more visually appealing - in fact, using coloured infographics can boost a reader’s attention span and comprehensibility by as much as 82%. They’re also a handy tool for businesses in the healthcare sector, with patients being 2.84 times more likely to understand their condition better if their health data is presented in the form of an infographic.
When sharing infographics on social media, it’s important to bear in mind the recommended image dimensions for each platform to ensure that none of your text gets cut off or cropped out of view in the feed, or on your profile. It may be a good idea to remind your audience to click or tap on the infographic to view it in full if the whole image can’t be displayed in the post preview.
Summary
As you can see, there are many different types of content that can be shared on social media to achieve various goals and outcomes, and to engage your audience in different ways. If you feel that your brand’s pages are becoming a little repetitive or you’re struggling to stand out from the crowd, give some of the ideas we’ve listed today a try and see which ones improve your results.
Which content types do you usually post for your business? Are you planning to diversify your strategy as we head towards Q4? Find us on X @3sixfivepro to share your thoughts or to request some tailored content suggestions for your brand.
