We've all seen the stunning Instagram feeds with amazing backgrounds, beautiful people and delicious food: it all seems too perfect to be real. Here's the deal: a flawless Instagram feed is no coincidence. It takes a lot of creativity, skills and planning to produce unique content pieces that will attract bigger audiences and gets you more followers.
Instagram is an extension of your brand. When users land on your profile, the grid will take over the screen, and it will share your visual story to the world.
Whether you're managing social media for a small business, a big corporation or your personal brand, incorporating an Instagram account to your marketing strategy is a must to help you position your brand online. Are you ready to create a visually captivating grid?
Here are 3 essential tips to creating a flawless Instagram feed.
1. Choose an Aesthetic That Fits Your Personality
Let's take a moment to reflect on your Instagram account's personality. You can start crafting your social media identity by answering the following questions: What kind of image am I trying to portray? What emotions do I want to provoke? What topics do I want to focus on? Are there any accounts that inspire me? What colors do I like? What's my favorite filter?
As you focus on the vision you want for your feed, the first big decision to take is choosing a color palette.
Either if you select pastels colors, vibrant hues, or a monochromatic scheme, a consistent color palette will help you establish a connection between the images you post and it will make your account look more polished and curated. Color psychology and branding can help you set the aesthetic & personality of your Instagram account.
Second, choose a theme. Are you a foodie? A traveler? A hike spots connoisseur? What's your passion? Having a theme will help you talk to a niche audience, create a uniform grid and grow your following.
2. Grow Your Followers with Hashtags & Stories
Now that you've planned every image it is time to post. Hashtags can help you enhance your profile's visibility, increase brand awareness and boost your profile to social media stardom. A post with only one hashtag gets more than 12% of engagement than posts without it. Use current and targeted hashtags on posts and stories to get discovered by new audiences.
While hashtags will help you get found by new users, Stories can help you connect with your existing followers. You can use Stories to document your day to day and give a human side to your online brand. Feature your personality, delight your followers with some behind the scenes action.
3. Plan & Schedule Accordingly
When someone clicks on your profile, you have a few seconds to capture their attention.
Your top 9 images will define if you're worthy of a follow or if they should move on and keep looking to other images on their feed.
Take a step back from posting and look at your Instagram feed as a whole entity: a cohesive group of images that work in unison to share your story. Instagram planning tools like Planoly and Later can help you plan and manage the order of your posts, when you want it to go live, and how it will look with the rest of the grid.