• 60 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Social Media Writing Prompts

A day offline, the post you deleted, what a like buys and the rules for your own feed.

Social Media Writing Prompts

Show all 60
  1. Write about a good day you decided to keep to yourself.Angle: say what it is like to own something social media never got.
  2. A character types an angry comment, puts the phone down and goes for a walk. Write the walk.Angle: by the corner the comment has changed; by the park it is gone.
  3. Send a postcard in place of the message you would have typed online. Write what fits on the card.First line: This took four days to reach you, so the news is old.

Next step Write a letter to mailTurn a row of emoji into a story

All 60 prompts

A day offline 15

  • A character leaves social media for a month and comes back. Write the first five minutes of scrolling. Angle: what they missed, and what they only thought they would miss.
  • A family agrees to a week with no social media, and one of them cheats. Write the dinner where it comes out. Angle: the cheat is not who anyone expected.
  • A grandparent explains how friends found each other on a Saturday before social media. Write what they say. Angle: one part that sounds harder and one part that sounds better.
  • A lighthouse keeper has never used social media. Write her questions when a visitor tries to explain it. Angle: her third question is the one the visitor cannot answer.
  • A town switches off social media one day a year. Write the poster and its rules. Angle: say what stands in for the feed that day: a notice board, a bell, a person with a loud voice.
  • Argue for or against this: a day off social media is a day off. Angle: decide whether being away is rest, or only a different kind of busy.
  • Describe a place you love without the photo you would have posted of it on social media. Angle: give the reader what a picture leaves out: the smell, the temperature, the noise.
  • It is midnight, the offline day is over and the phone lights up again. Write that minute. First line: Forty-one notifications, and thirty-nine of them could have waited.
  • Keep a diary of one day offline that begins bored and ends somewhere else. Angle: the boredom lasts until about lunch; say what replaces it.
  • The power goes out across town and social media goes with it. Write the evening on one street. First line: By seven, people had come outside to see who else was in the dark.
  • Send a postcard in place of the message you would have typed online. Write what fits on the card. First line: This took four days to reach you, so the news is old.
  • Spend one Saturday off social media and write the day hour by hour. Angle: note the first time your hand reaches for the phone, and what it finds to do instead.
  • Two cousins who have only ever talked online spend an afternoon in the same room. Write the first awkward minute. First line: She was taller than her profile picture, which was a drawing of a frog.
  • Walk one block without checking social media and write down everything you noticed. Angle: ten small things, then one paragraph on the strangest.
  • What is the last thing you did that nobody online knows about? Write it down, for paper only. Angle: say why it never became a post, and whether it is better that way.

A post I did not send 15

  • A character types an angry comment, puts the phone down and goes for a walk. Write the walk. Angle: by the corner the comment has changed; by the park it is gone.
  • A parent asks to read a post before it goes up, and the post never goes up. Write the conversation. Angle: let the parent be right about one thing and wrong about another.
  • A post is written at midnight and read again at breakfast, still unsent. Write both readings. Angle: the same words and two readers: the one who wrote it and the one who slept.
  • An apology is typed as a post, deleted, and made in person. Tell both versions. Angle: the typed one was longer; say what the spoken one left out.
  • The battery dies with a post half written. Finish the sentence on paper. First line: What I was going to say was
  • Describe a photo you took and never posted. Angle: say what is in it and what you thought people would see.
  • Make a poem out of things people nearly posted on social media and thought better of. Angle: one line a post, each line beginning Almost.
  • The perfect reply to a comment arrives three hours too late. Write the reply and where the character was standing. First line: In the shower, obviously.
  • Someone has just lost a race, a game or an audition. Write the post they do not send tonight. Angle: then the one they would write a week later.
  • Someone is about to post a friend's secret. Write the ten seconds before they decide not to. First line: My thumb was already over the button.
  • Tell a year as a drafts folder: five unsent posts, in order. Angle: the reader should work out what happened from what was never said.
  • Two versions of one post: the one for everybody and the one that is true. Write both. Angle: they may differ by a single sentence.
  • Write about a good day you decided to keep to yourself. Angle: say what it is like to own something social media never got.
  • Write the post you typed and deleted. Then write why you deleted it. Angle: keep it on paper; a notebook has no send button.
  • You forgot to post a birthday message for a friend. Write the scene where you say it out loud, eleven days late. First line: I had it typed. I want that on the record.

What a like is worth 15

  • A character's post goes viral for the wrong reason. Write the day after. Angle: keep the reason small: a typo, a cat in the background, a hat.
  • A grandmother posts for the first time and gets three likes. Write why she is delighted. First line: Three people, she said. Imagine three people stopping to look.
  • A like is pressed by accident on a cousin's very old photo. Write the minute of panic and the reply. Angle: nothing terrible follows; the reply is kinder than the panic.
  • A post gets one like, and it is from exactly the right person. Write that story. First line: One. But I knew who before I looked.
  • A shop starts taking likes as money. Write one day at the counter. Angle: decide what a loaf of bread costs, and who is suddenly rich.
  • Argue it: is a like from a stranger worth more or less than a like from a friend? Angle: pick a side, then give the other side its best point.
  • Compare a like with a compliment said to your face. Which one lasts longer? Angle: use one real compliment you still remember.
  • Every like count on social media vanishes overnight. Write the first morning without them. Angle: one person is relieved, one is lost and one does not notice.
  • Give the like button a speech: the most pressed button on social media finally says what it thinks. First line: Nobody has ever asked what I like.
  • Invent a new button for social media that says something a like cannot. Angle: name it, describe its shape, and say when you would press it.
  • One kid collects likes and another collects stamps. Write their conversation. Angle: each thinks the other's collection is the silly one.
  • Set the second it takes to give a like beside the afternoon it took to make the post. Write what you think of the trade. Angle: decide whether that is unfair or simply how it works.
  • Would you rather have a thousand likes or one long letter? Write your answer and your reason. Angle: say where you would keep each of them.
  • Write a thank-you note for a single like, as serious as if it were a wedding present. First line: Dear Sir or Madam, thank you for the small heart.
  • Write about something you made that got no likes at all and that you still love. Angle: describe it well enough that the reader takes your side.

A rule for my feed 15

  • A cat is put in charge of a social media feed. Write its rules. First line: Rule one: every post is about me.
  • A character unfollows half of what they follow in one evening. Describe the feed the next morning. Angle: write it as a room that has just been tidied.
  • A character will post only what they would show a grandparent. Write the week that rule gets tested. Angle: the test comes on Thursday.
  • A family writes its social media rules and everybody signs, the parents too. Write the rule the parents like least. First line: Rule four: no pictures of me asleep.
  • A school lets its students write the social media rules. Write the meeting. Angle: the hardest rule to agree on is the shortest.
  • Argue for or against: nobody should post a photo of you without asking first. Angle: test your rule on a class picture, a birthday party and a crowd.
  • Design a feed that shows one post a day and no more. Write what today's post would be. Angle: say who chooses it, and whether one beats a hundred.
  • The feed keeps showing a character one thing because they looked at it once. Write how they change its mind. Angle: make it a pair of shoes, a soup recipe or a goat; keep it small and funny.
  • If your feed were a street, who would live on it? Write a walk down that street. Angle: say which house you would visit more often, and which you would hurry past.
  • Imagine a feed with a closing time, like a bakery. Write the sign on its door. Angle: the opening hours, the reason and what to do while it is shut.
  • Sort your feed into three piles: makes me laugh, teaches me something, wastes my time. Write about the pile that surprised you. Angle: count nothing; one example from each pile is enough.
  • What one rule would you give a younger cousin on their first day on social media? Angle: one rule only, and the mistake of your own that taught it to you.
  • Write a rule for commenting that fits on a sticky note. First line: Would I say it across a table?
  • Write three rules for your own social media feed and the story behind each one. Angle: a rule with no story is only a wish.
  • You make a rule for your feed and break it the same day. Write that day. Angle: say what broke it, and whether the rule or you needed changing.

How it works

These social media writing prompts are things to write about social media, on paper. None is a caption or anything to post, no app is named, and none tells a writer how much to use one.

Read the full guide

Writing prompts about social media, as stories

Most of the sixty start a story or a scene. A shop takes likes as money. A lighthouse keeper asks what a feed is. A grandmother gets three likes on her first post and is delighted. The trouble stays small on purpose: a typo, a hat, a goat.

Six that ask for an opinion

Is a stranger's like worth more than a friend's? May anyone post a photo of you without asking? Is a day offline really a day off? Six prompts ask the writer to take a side, and each works as a paragraph or as a debate.

  • Write by hand. A page cannot be liked, shared or sent by mistake.
  • Name no app. The piece still reads true after the app has changed its name.

Questions and answers

What is a good writing prompt about social media?

One about a post that never goes up. Someone is about to post a friend's secret: write the ten seconds before they decide not to. Or write the post you typed and deleted, then why you deleted it.

Are these captions or prompts for posts?

No. Each is a piece of writing about social media: a story, a diary entry, an argument, a poem. The list holds no caption, hashtag or hook, and nothing written from it needs to go online.

Is there a social media writing prompt for a group?

The rule prompts suit one. Write a rule for commenting that fits on a sticky note, then compare notes. Or write the meeting where students draft their school's social media rules, and the short rule nobody can agree on.

Are these fit for a child to read?

Yes. Nobody is bullied or shamed, nobody meets a stranger from online, and no prompt asks for a screen name or for a photo to be shared.

More tools

Show 8 more

Browse Writing Prompts