20 minutes reading timeSeven content archetypes, and why the brands you remember only ever picked one.
Scroll through the feed of almost any brand and you'll find the same thing. A recipe on Monday. A meme on Wednesday. A quote over a sunset on Thursday. A founder story on Friday, and a giveaway on Sunday because engagement was low. Each post on its own is fine (some are even lovely). But put them together, and they say everything and mean nothing.
The brands that post a bit of everything usually do it for the same reason: nobody ever decided what the feed is for.
So let's look at the one decision that fixes it.
What are content archetypes?
Let's keep it simple.
Your brand's character decides how you sound. While your content archetype decides what you post, and why people stop scrolling for it.
We can divide brand content into seven archetypes, and every one of them gives people a different reason to follow you. To learn something. To see their own life. To dream a little. To get better. To see how a story ends. To have a laugh. Or to step into another world.
(Not to be confused with the twelve brand archetypes by Margaret Mark and Carol Pearson, like the Hero and the Sage. Those decide who your brand is. These decide what it posts.)
Nobody follows a brand because it posts. People follow because they get something in return, and they come back because they get the same thing over and over again. That's the whole trick. Your followers aren't loyal to your logo, they're loyal to a feeling they've learned to expect from you. A little like the regular who orders the same coffee every morning, and would be quietly offended if it tasted different.
Here are the seven, with an example of a brand embracing said archetype.
The Resource: content that teaches
Why do people save some posts and scroll past the rest? The Resource is the friend who knows how, and every post answers a question your customer already has. How do I make this at home? What am I doing wrong? Which one should I pick? People save the post to try it later, which, on Instagram, is about the highest compliment there is.
Look at @ottolenghi, the London group of chef and restaurateur Yotam Ottolenghi. Behind the restaurants sits a test kitchen, where his team develops and tests recipes before they reach the menus, the books and his newspaper column. When the 2020 lockdown sent that team home, they kept cooking, and shared it on Instagram: simple dishes, Instagram stories full of recipes, built from what people already had in the cupboard. People cooked along and wrote back to ask what they could swap in. One dish, confit tandoori chickpeas made from a couple of tins, became famous on Instagram all on its own.
Here's the interesting part. Those questions became a product. In September 2021 the test kitchen published Shelf Love, a cookbook built on exactly that promise (if you don't have this, use that), and the first of a four-part series. The team didn't post to sell a book. They taught, listened to what people asked, and let the questions shape what came next.
So that's the takeaway. Answer the questions your followers actually ask, and they'll tell you what to "sell" them next. And notice who did the teaching: not a logo, but cooks with names and faces. A Resource only works when people trust whoever is teaching. (Hold that thought. It gets a piece of its own later in this series.)
For a hotel, the Resource is the concierge who knows the city better than any app. The hotel that teaches its guests where locals actually eat, which museum to skip and when the market is worth the early alarm. Teach someone the city like a local, and guess whose bed they'll book the next time they're in town.
On Instagram, that looks like: the how-to reel, the carousel of mistakes to avoid, and the guide people save for later. For a hotel: the three places locals actually eat, one post at a time.
The Everyday: content that shows real life
Why does a normal Tuesday sell better than a dream? The Everyday doesn't show a dream. It shows a normal Tuesday, and quietly puts your product in the middle of it. Breakfast, the walk to work, the bag on the chair, the lunch you actually eat. People look at it and think: that's me.
In November 2023, a woman posted a TikTok of her car after a fire. The inside was burnt out. In the cupholder stood her Stanley tumbler, a little scorched, still rattling with ice. Tens of millions of people watched it. Then Stanley's president, Terence Reilly, answered with a video of his own: he'd send her new cups, and replace her car.
So notice what Stanley made? Not the moment, not the video, not the story. A customer did, on a normal day (well not so normal in this case), with the cup doing what it does every day. The brand's best content was somebody else's Tuesday, and Stanley was smart enough to join in rather than talk over it.
It works because people buy what fits into their life. If they can picture your product on their own kitchen table, half the selling is already done.
The danger is that nice is easy to forget. The Everyday lives on the one detail nobody else bothers to show.
On Instagram, that looks like: a real morning with your product in it, the customer photo you repost, and the small detail nobody else shoots. For a hotel: the breakfast table as it really looks at 8:15.
The Becoming: content that shows who your customer wants to be
What are you really selling, the product or the room it opens? The Becoming shows the person your customer wants to be. Not who they are today, but who they'd be with your product in their life. The kitchen with the proper espresso machine. The slow Sunday morning. The home that looks like it belongs in a magazine. Your product isn't the hero of the post. It's the key to the room. It doesn't ask you to change. It shows you what's already waiting.
Few brands sell the room as well as Bacha Coffee. The original coffee room opened in Marrakech in 1910. In 2019, the Singapore company behind TWG Tea revived it, and opened its first boutique far from Morocco, in ION Orchard, a shopping mall in Singapore. Inside, the room takes its cue from the Dar el Bacha palace in Marrakech: arches, gold, and a menu of some 200 coffees. Outside, there's a queue. People don't queue for a cup of coffee. They queue for a seat in another world, a little Marrakech between the escalators. The coffee is just the key.
That's the Becoming at work. People don't buy a product, they buy the life it promises. Show the life, and the price starts to feel like an investment.
But too perfect feels out of reach. Leave one door open, so people believe they could walk through it. This is where luxury hotels for example take a wrong turn: the room is flawless, the pool is empty, the light is golden, and nobody can imagine themselves in it, because nobody is in it.
There's one famous exception, and it proves the rule. Aman, the hotel group that began with a single resort in Phuket in 1988, barely advertised for years. Its guests, the so-called Amanjunkies (no, it's not a typo), did the talking. And its feed is famously quiet: space, stone, water, and hardly a face looking into the camera. It works because stillness is exactly what Aman sells. For Aman, the empty pool isn't a missed opportunity. It's the product. For almost every other hotel, empty just looks lifeless.
On Instagram, that looks like: the ritual (the first coffee on the terrace), the space with one door left open, and the guest who already lives the life your followers want.
The 1%: content about getting better, step by step
What if your customers would rather earn it than buy it? The 1% is about getting better, one small step at a time. Where the Becoming shows the finish line, the 1% shows the next step: the early start, the effort, the people doing it together. The Becoming makes you want. The 1% makes you do. (And that's exactly why people love it: you can't buy your way in.)
Equinox, the luxury gym, made this its whole stance. On 1 January 2023, traditionally one of the biggest days of the year for gym sign-ups, it closed its website to new members under the line "We don't speak January". New Year's resolutions, the brand argued, feel good for three weeks and never push you further. On New Year's Day 2025 it did it again: no sign-ups, just one line. Commit to something. No discount, no before and after. It's the opposite of every January sale. Equinox doesn't promise you a new you. It asks whether you're willing to earn one.
It works because people want to belong to something that makes them better. Build that, and your followers stop watching and start joining.
The risk is the sermon. Show the sweat, skip the speech. For a hotel, it's the morning run club that leaves from the lobby at 6:30, where the content is less about the suite and more about the guests who show up every day.
On Instagram, that looks like: the early start, the progress post (week one next to week twelve), and the group shot of everyone who showed up anyway.
The Voyager: content that documents the journey
Why do people root for a story that isn't finished? The Voyager documents the build. The founder on camera, the first order, the bad week, the honest numbers. It's a story that moves, and people follow it like a series because they want to know how the next episode ends.
Poppi is the sharpest recent example. Allison and Stephen Ellsworth started with an apple cider vinegar drink made in their own kitchen, pitched it on Shark Tank in 2018 and relaunched it as Poppi in 2020. In 2021, Allison posted a TikTok telling the story of how it all began. By her own account, it brought in 100,000 dollars of sales overnight. From then on, the founders' story was the brand's best advert. In March 2025, PepsiCo agreed to buy Poppi for 1.95 billion dollars.
It works because people root for people. Show them the journey, and by the time you launch, they've been waiting months to buy from you.
The one rule: the story has to move. Nobody follows a journey that stands still.
On Instagram, that looks like: the founder talking straight to camera, the honest numbers, and behind the scenes of the next launch. For a hotel: the renovation diary, room by room.
The Performer: content that entertains
Is a laugh worth anything to a brand? The Performer entertains. Every post is a little show: a sketch, a trend with a twist, the team being themselves on camera. There's no long story to follow. Each post stands on its own, and the goal is simple: people laugh, then send it to a friend.
Nobody does this with less shame than Ryanair. An airline best known for cheap seats and strict baggage rules turned its social feeds into a running joke about itself: the plane with a face, the passengers who complain about legroom, the replies that tease the very people writing in. It shouldn't work. It works because it's honest. Everyone knows what flying Ryanair is like, and the account says it before you can. Researchers at WU Vienna studied two and a half years of Ryanair's posts on X and found that its sarcastic humour made the brand more polarising, and grew its following anyway. That's the price of the Performer. Some people will never like you, and the rest will send you to their friends.
A share is the cheapest reach there is. Make people smile often enough, and they start to feel like they know you.
But laughs don't pay the rent. Keep the product inside the joke, not next to it. Ryanair jokes about sport and celebrities too, but its best-known punchlines are about flying Ryanair: the legroom, the fees, the plane itself.
On Instagram, that looks like: the sketch, the trend with your own twist, and the reply that turns a complaint into a joke. For a hotel: the team being themselves, night porter included.
The Fictional: content that invents a world
Can a brand become a world people step into? The Fictional makes things up, on purpose. The brand invents a character or a world, and keeps the story going post after post, like a series people wait for. Where the Voyager tells the true story of the people behind the brand, the Fictional tells an invented one. A mascot with moods and habits. A hotel with legends of its own. A storyline followers come back to, just to see what happens next.
In February 2025, Duolingo announced that Duo, its green owl, had died. The cause of death was later revealed: hit by a Cybertruck. The post drew more than 60 million views within a day, other brands joined the mourning, and two weeks later Duo came back to life, because users had done enough lessons to revive him. It was absurd. It was also only possible because Duolingo had spent years turning a mascot into a character with moods, habits and a slightly threatening interest in your daily streak. You can't kill off a logo. You can only kill off someone people know.
That's the reward of the Fictional. Once people are inside the world, they don't just follow the brand. They belong to it.
It's also the hardest one. It's slow to start, expensive to keep up and useless without a plan. Only for the patient. For a hotel, it's the countryside house with a folklore of its own, the place whose rituals have names and whose staff become the cast.
On Instagram, that looks like: the recurring character, the episode that picks up last week's story, and the seasonal ritual with a name. For a hotel: the legend of room 12, told one chapter at a time.
So which one are you?
Here's the quickest way to find out. Which of these is the reason people follow you?
The Resource: to learn something.
The Everyday: to see their own life in yours.
The Becoming: to dream about a better life.
The 1%: to get better themselves.
The Voyager: to see how your story ends.
The Performer: to have a laugh.
The Fictional: to step into another world.
Still not sure? Look at your best post ever. Your audience usually tells you who you are before you know it yourself.
What if more than one fits?
Most brands tick two or three on that list. That's normal. Three questions settle it.
What do you sell: a feeling or a fix? If people buy you to feel something (a stay, a dinner, a beautiful object), look at the Becoming, the Everyday or the Fictional. If they buy you to fix something (a skill, a problem, a result), look at the Resource or the 1%.
What do your followers already come for? Read your comments and your messages. Questions point to the Resource. Photos of your product in people's homes point to the Everyday. "Take me there" points to the Becoming.
What can you keep up every single week? Be honest here. The Resource needs know-how you're happy to give away. The Voyager needs a founder who's comfortable on camera, and a story that keeps moving. The Performer needs a team with real timing. The Fictional needs a plan, a budget and patience. The archetype you can serve every week beats the one you can only serve once.
And if you'd like a starting point, here's what I'd usually suggest. Hotels and restaurants tend to do well with the Becoming or the Resource. Food and drink brands with the Everyday or the Resource. Founders building something new with the Voyager. Take it as a place to start, not a rule. Your comments and your best posts know your brand better than any list does.
Can't I just do a bit of everything?
I hear you, I hear you. And I understand it (choosing feels like closing doors). But this is where the brands at the top of this piece went wrong. Trying to be all seven is how brands end up posting everything and meaning nothing, because every post answers a different question, and nobody learns what to expect from you.
Picking one doesn't mean every post looks the same. Ryanair posts sketches, trends and replies, all Performer. Duolingo posts streak reminders, the owl's moods and even his funeral, all Fictional. Within one archetype, you have plenty of room. What you don't have is permission to change the reason people follow you every Wednesday.
Now to put it together
This is the part that turns a feed into a brand, and it takes one evening.
First, pick one archetype. Just one.
Second, build three to five content pillars inside it. Pillars are the recurring kinds of post you'll come back to again and again. A Resource might use the how-to, the mistake and the myth. A Becoming might use the ritual, the space and the person who already lives it. A Voyager might use the milestone, the mistake and behind the scenes.
Third, test every single post before it goes out. Ask one question: does this build my archetype? If the answer is no, it stays in the drafts, however pretty it is.
That last step is the hard one. It means saying no to good ideas. But a brand is just a promise kept over and over, and every post that breaks it costs you a little of the trust the others earned.
To recap
A content archetype is the reason people follow you. Your character decides how you sound; your archetype decides what you post.
There are seven: the Resource, the Everyday, the Becoming, the 1%, the Voyager, the Performer and the Fictional.
Pick one, by what you sell, what your followers come for and what you can keep up. Build three to five pillars inside it. Test every post against it.
The brands you remember did exactly that, for years.
Pick one, set the table for it, and serve it every single week. Your followers will know exactly what's on the menu. And that's when they start coming back for more.
So, which one is yours? Send me a message through my contact page with your Instagram handle, and I'll tell you honestly whether your last nine posts agree.
Yours truly,
Emiel
The seven content archetypes are Alex Garcia's framework (House of AG). Brand examples are my own reading of public sources.