13 ChatGPT Prompts for Small Business Social Media Posts

These are the prompts I would give a busy owner who wants ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini to write their social posts. Each one is a block you can copy, with brackets for your own details, grouped by the job it does. I build posthell, an AI that writes posts for small businesses, so the failure modes in the second half are ones I see from the inside.

What makes a ChatGPT prompt work for a business post?#

A prompt works when it carries your facts and your limits: what happened, the details, which network, how long, and an order to invent nothing.

Most prompt lists hand you something like "write an engaging Instagram post for my bakery". That gives the chatbot nothing true to say, so it writes the average bakery post: warm, enthusiastic, and full of details you never gave it. The fix is to spend less effort on how the prompt is worded and more on the facts inside it. A dull prompt with three real details beats a clever prompt with none.

Here are the 13 prompts below, by job:

Which prompts do you paste once, before anything else?#

Two: a fact sheet that says what the chatbot may say, and a voice prompt built from posts you wrote. Everything after works better.

Prompt 1: the fact sheet. A fact sheet is a short block of true facts about your business that you paste before any request, and it is the prompt that matters most. Fill it in properly once, save it in a note on your phone, and paste it at the top of every new chat.

You are helping me write social media posts for my business.
Use only the facts below. If a post needs a fact that is not
here, leave it out or ask me. Never invent prices, offers,
discounts, dates, reviews, awards or customer stories.

Business: [name], a [kind of business] in [town]
Hours: [days and hours]
What we sell: [3 to 6 items or services, with prices you want used]
How people book or buy: [walk in, phone, booking link, DMs]
Words I never use: [e.g. luxury, best in town, exclamation marks]

Reply "Got it" and wait for my first note.

If your chatbot can save instructions for every chat (ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini each have a version of this), put the fact sheet there instead. Then check it once a month, because your hours and prices change and the saved copy does not.

Prompt 2: your voice. Paste five posts you wrote yourself, ideally ones that got a reaction.

Here are 5 posts I wrote myself. They sound like me:
[paste 5 posts]

Describe how I write in 5 short bullet points: sentence
length, words I use, words I avoid, how I start and end a
post, and my emoji and hashtag habits. Follow those rules
for every post you write me in this chat.

Which prompts turn this week into a post?#

Start from one line about what happened, then ask for one post, a version per network, or a notice about an opening or new hours.

Prompt 3: one note into one post.

Write one Instagram caption from this note. Keep every fact
exactly as written and add no new ones. Under 80 words.
Plain words, the way I would say it at the counter. No
hashtags yet.

Note: [what happened, e.g. "first pumpkin loaves out at 7,
$8 each, until they're gone"]

Prompt 4: a version for each network. Run it straight after prompt 3.

Rewrite that post for each network below. Same facts in all
of them, nothing added. Label each one.
- Facebook: friendly, can end with one genuine question
- Instagram: short, the first line works on its own
- LinkedIn: a little more context, no slang

Prompt 5: an opening or a cancellation.

Write a two-sentence post for Instagram and Facebook: a
[service] slot opened on [day] at [time] because of a
cancellation. Say how to book: [how]. Do not add "don't
miss out", "spots are filling fast" or any urgency I did
not give you.

Prompt 6: hours change or a closure.

Write a short post saying our hours change on [date]:
[new hours, and the reason if I want it shared]. Put the
date and the times in the first sentence. End with when
normal hours come back: [day and time].

Which prompts help when you need ideas?#

Ideas come from material you already have: the questions customers asked this month, and the ordinary parts of your week that customers never see.

Prompt 7: ideas from real questions.

These are questions customers asked me this month:
[paste 5 to 10 questions]

Turn each one into a post idea for a [kind of business].
For each, give a one-line idea and a photo I could take
with my phone. Do not write the posts yet.

Prompt 8: ideas from a normal week. This is the prompt for weeks when nothing new happened, which for most businesses is most weeks. Our guide on what to post when nothing new is happening has a dozen worked examples of the same idea.

Nothing new happened at my [kind of business] this week.
Here is what a normal week looks like: [deliveries,
regulars, prep, the tools we use, the quietest day].
Give me 8 post ideas that come from those ordinary things.
No holidays, no giveaways, no motivational quotes.

Which prompts write a caption for a photo?#

Upload the photo, tell the chatbot only what it cannot see, like the price or the day, and tell it not to guess.

Prompt 9: a caption for a photo.

I've attached a photo from today. First describe only what
is actually in it. Then write a two-sentence caption using
this context: [what it is, the price, when it's available].
Do not guess at anything you can't see or I didn't tell you.

Prompt 10: alt text. Alt text is the description a screen reader reads aloud, and Instagram and Facebook both let you add it.

Write alt text for the attached photo: one plain sentence
describing what someone would see. Don't start with "image
of" or "photo of".

Which prompts fix and check a draft?#

Three: one strips the advert voice, one checks every claim against your fact sheet, and one keeps hashtags to a number Instagram allows.

Prompt 11: make it sound like you, not an ad.

Edit this post so it sounds like a person typed it, not an
ad:
[paste post]

Remove exclamation marks, "indulge", "hidden gem", "treat
yourself", "don't miss out" and "we're thrilled". Remove a
question as the first line, lists like "No X, no Y", lines
like "X. Not the Y.", and anything that sounds like a
slogan. Keep every fact. Make it shorter, not longer.

The patterns in that list are not a guess. They are the ones we had to write detectors for in posthell's own writer, after they kept turning up in real drafts. More on that in how to make AI posts not sound like AI.

Prompt 12: the fact check. If you only keep one prompt from this page, keep this one.

Compare this post with my fact sheet above:
[paste post]

List every price, date, time, offer, number and claim in
the post. Mark each one "in my facts" or "not in my facts".
Do not rewrite the post.

Prompt 13: hashtags.

Suggest exactly 5 hashtags for this Instagram post: 2 about
what it is, 2 about where we are ([town or neighborhood])
and 1 with our business name. No general tags like #love
or #instagood.
[paste post]

The number five is not a style choice: Instagram now limits captions on posts and Reels to five hashtags, and a lot of the advice online still says 30. Say the number in the prompt so the chatbot does not follow the old advice.

Where do general chatbots go wrong for business posts?#

They fill gaps with invented details, default to excitement, give every caption the same shape, and do not know your hours, prices or stock.

None of this means chatbots are bad writers. They write very well about whatever they are given. The trouble is what they do when they are given too little:

• They invent to finish the post. Ask for a post about a new menu item and a chatbot will often add "for a limited time", a price, or "our customers can't get enough". Each one sounds right and none of them came from you. A made-up offer is worse than a weak post, because someone will turn up and ask for it.
• They are excited by default. Exclamation marks, "we're thrilled", an emoji per sentence. A small business owner who talks like that at the counter is rare, so the post reads like an advert for somebody else's shop.
• They write the same shape every time. A question as the opener, three benefits, a call to action, a block of hashtags. After a month of that, every post on your page looks like the one before it.
• They don't know your business today. Your hours, your prices, the fact that the oven broke on Tuesday: a chatbot knows none of it unless you paste it in, and a saved copy goes stale the day your hours change.
• They follow old platform rules. The hashtag limit above is one example. Tell it the rule rather than trusting it to know.

I see the first problem from the inside. posthell's writer is told in its own rules to use only the facts it was given, and every draft goes through a checker. Even so, while I was writing examples for this blog, one draft gave a regular customer a name the owner never typed, and another described a remodeling crew as "booked out pretty far" when the note said nothing of the kind. We caught both and wrote them again. A general chatbot has no rule like that unless you write it, which is why prompts 1 and 12 do most of the work on this page.

What does a post look like with no prompt at all?#

With posthell you type a plain note instead. It writes from that note and your business details, makes a version per network, then waits.

To be clear about the claim: this is not "posthell writes better than ChatGPT". Given good facts, ChatGPT writes well. The difference is where the facts come from and what happens after the writing. posthell reads your website when you sign up, so the fact sheet in prompt 1 is built for you. It writes a separate version for each network you connect. It schedules and publishes to X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and Pinterest. And nothing goes out until you approve it.

Here is what it wrote from three plain notes, unedited. Every example was written by posthell from the note above it, then checked against that note.

A cafe, Pebble & Pour Coffee.

The note: "closing at 1 this friday for a private event. back to normal saturday from 6:30"

The post posthell wrote:

heads up: we're closing at 1pm this friday for a private event. back to normal saturday, doors open at 6:30 as usual.

A remodeling crew, Keel & Beam Builders.

The note: "finished a bathroom in clintonville today. took 9 days. the green tile was the client's pick and it was the right call"

The post posthell wrote:

Wrapped up a bathroom in Clintonville. Nine days start to finish, and that green tile the client chose ended up being the standout detail in the whole room. You don't always know how someone's instinct will land until it's grouted in.

Keel & Beam Builders, Columbus. Free estimates if you've got a bathroom or kitchen you've been putting off.

A hair salon, Harlow & Pine.

The note: "two cancellations thursday, 11am and 3pm. either one works for a cut or a blowout"

The post posthell wrote:

Two spots just opened up this Thursday, 11am and 3pm. Cut or blowout, either one's available. Call or use the booking link to grab one before someone else does.

How does that one note change per network?#

The same note, run through posthell's per-network step:

Instagram:

Two spots just opened up this Thursday, 11am and 3pm. Cut or blowout, first come first served. 📞 Call us or tap the link in bio to grab one.

#RaleighHairSalon #RaleighNC #HairSalon #Blowout #RaleighSalon

Facebook:

Thursday still has two openings, 11am and 3pm. Anyone need a cut or blowout this week?

Threads:

Two spots just freed up this Thursday at Harlow & Pine, 11am and 3pm. Cut or blowout, whoever grabs them first. Are you the type to plan ahead or always last minute?

The day, the times and the services match in all three. The length, the hashtags, the emoji and the ending are what change, because a Facebook post for regulars and an Instagram caption get read differently. One thing I would still edit before approving: the closing question on the Threads version is filler, so I would cut it. Every version can be edited before it goes out, which is the point of the approval step.

If you only need a caption now and then, our free Instagram caption generator and Facebook post generator work without an account. For the full picture of handing the weekly posting over, see what an AI social media manager does for a small business. And if you were hoping ChatGPT could do the posting part too, this explains what it can and cannot connect to.

Where to start#

Copy prompt 1, fill in the brackets with your real hours, prices and booking method, and save it somewhere you will find it. Next time something happens at work (a delivery, a cancellation, a dish that sold out), type one line about it under the fact sheet with prompt 3, then run prompt 12 before you post. That is ten minutes, and the post will say only true things.