Staying in is our new normal. And as we sit at home without the possibility of finding new content through our travel photos and restaurant visits, our Instagram feed demands an easier, home-friendly strategy.
The focus of Instagram is mainly on the visual identity of your feed and hence, ensuring that the way your profile looks is appealing is of utmost importance.
Finding the right photos, the perfect way to represent them, and at the same time, conveying your message can seem intimidating but there are simple strategies that can make your life easy.
Whether you are a brand or an individual looking to spruce up their Insta feed, these 10 tips are guaranteed to be extra helpful in finding your way around the platform.
1. Find a Grid Layout for your Feed
Posts on Instagram come in rows with three images each. You can post photos at random on each of these squares but what will really set your feed apart would be a well-planned grid layout.
There are many ways in which you can position your images in an Instagram grid. The simplest one will always be individual frames. But you can also post them as groups of 3, break the monotony with text tiles in the middle or even take it a step further by creating a puzzle.
A grid layout is a great way to plan and keep your feed looking consistent without needing you to pull out your hair every time you want to post something new.
2. Decide on an Instagram Theme
Your vibe on Instagram is the theme that you follow through your feed. It is your visual personality for this platform and is, therefore, an important aspect of creating your content.
Based on how you want to portray yourself or your brand, you can zero in on a theme that can range from grunge to minimal to boho, tropical, or opulent!
Having a theme helps you create a uniform identity for the feed in a way that when anyone takes a quick look at it, they would know that this page belongs to a particular creator or brand.
3. Freeze on a Topic of Interest
If you are an individual creator using your platform for a specific purpose, it is essential that you know what you want to do with your feed. This would need you to delve deep and find what you are really passionate about.
It could be food, travel, books, comedy, fashion, or writing! It could also double up as your own portfolio if you are an artist, graphic designer, or illustrator.
Having a broad topic that you are passionate about and can speak endlessly on would definitely help you grow as a creator on Instagram. So many people have made careers out of it and with the right amount of dedication so can you!
4. Stick to One Filter
The color scheme of your feed is an important part of your Instagram identity. It also helps you maintain your theme. The most basic way to stick to a uniform theme is using one filter on all your photos.
These filters could be from the ones available on Instagram but they can also be found on multiple other platforms. Any Instagram marketing agency would advise their clients to do the same so that they can maintain consistency!
5. Decide How Your Photos Flow
For creating a well-curated Instagram feed, it is important for you to plan your posts in a way that they look great and match your aesthetics. Not every photo looks next to each other.
Use a planning tool to preview your Instagram feed and move around to ensure that your posts look great next to each other while not messing with your overall theme.
Once you find the flow to your Instagram feed, it will be a cakewalk for you to keep matching the theme and the existing photos to create a profile that is attractive and harmonious.
6. Engage with Your Followers
Once you have decided what you want to talk about and what your feed will look like, you will start attracting an audience who is interested in what you have to offer. These days, gaining real Instagram followers is no big of a hassle. Online tools and growth services tend to help in bridging that gap. Doing enough research about each service is important because you are bound to come across several services that can do no good. If you read this Combin review, you can learn how some of the Instagram bots or services can lose your social media account’s general credibility than building it.
But just getting more followers is not the end deal. You will also have to ensure that you keep them interested in your feed by posting content that is relevant to them in a regular manner.
If you are unable to spend more time on engagement, try different Instagram bots like Growthoid and Growthsilo (check some of the Instagram bot reviews) and see the success in garnering a successful following for your Instagram account.
7. Use Videos & Photos Clicked in Natural Light
Natural lighting does wonders for the way your photographs and videos look. It is no surprise that images or videos shot with the flash on are not extremely aesthetic until and unless you have a specific way of styling it.
It is, therefore, always advised that you click these photos in natural lighting or use lights that fit into your feed aesthetic. Using external lights are not completely unadvised as long as they don’t make your feed look chaotic.
8. Use Only High-Resolution Photos and Videos
The best content creators on Instagram use either a professional camera or their phone camera to click their photos. You do not need a DSLR camera to create a feed that looks great, in our opinion. If you are putting this into a video format that is going online for your followers, then you may want to see if royalty-free music is a good way to go to give it a soundtrack and make it more appealing for viewers to stick around instead of just having dead air.
You need the right kind of lighting, a good camera, and an eye for the aesthetic aspect of a scene. Most smartphone cameras are really good and can click photos that look clean and are high resolution.
This would make editing them easy as well. Using tutorials on how to make a video on Mac or edit an image on Photoshop, you can create great content for your page.
9. Be Consistent
If you are a content creator with something interesting to offer to your followers and your community in general, you need to be regular. The longer you do not post relevant content, the more likely it is that you will lose your followers.
In this case, what helps is having a plan in place. If you dedicate time to plan your posts every month, you will be able to maintain a good feed without putting so much effort on a day-to-day basis.
10. Have Fun
Despite all the serious planning, Instagram is still a platform for you to share content that you are passionate about. And working on something you love should not be completely devoid of fun!
So, whether it is showcasing your photography, your love for fashion, or your skills as an illustrator, don’t forget to have a lot of fun while you do it. The moment you enjoy creating content for your feed, you will see yourself being consistent with posting as well!
Conclusion
Social media is a space where you can learn, grow, go viral, get famous, find your calling or all of the above. While there are no real rules, a few best practices can make your feed go from basic to brilliant.
By creating an Instagram profile that is aesthetically appealing, almost half your goal of grabbing eyeballs is, therefore, complete. For the rest, staying true to your passion will reflect in your follower count!
