How To Have an Instagram Overhaul
Whether you’re a blogger or a business owner looking to use instagram to showcase your products and designs, it can be a fantastic tool for shining a light on your skills and interests, as well as helping you to connect with a huge community of like minded people. Whether we admit it or not, we all have a slight obsession with how our feed looks, and get a little warm feeling inside when we see our photos getting lots of likes, so if you’re looking for some tips on how to make your Instagram feed look a little more cohesive and so make your account more popular, hopefully these tips will help!
Firstly, pinpoint your popular posts
You can now check your instagram insights to quickly and easily see which are your most popular posts. See which ones have the most engagement and performed the best, and make a mental note of what they have in common. Do they all feature you? Are they shot in spectacular locations? Or are they just pretty?! The reason for the imagery within this blog post is that on my instagram, my followers just love pretty things! Light hearted, fun and girly content with flowers, cupcakes and pink buildings may seem a little ‘basic’ but it’s what my followers love, which is lucky because it’s what I love too!
What about the posts that you like? It’s one thing trying to grow your account for your business but you have to love your feed too. Don’t become so picky about what you post that you find yourself taking hundreds of gorgeous shots but then not posting because ‘they don’t work with my grid’ – keep reading to hear how I use filters to create a similar aesthetic across all my photos, meaning no matter where I shoot or what I shoot (within reason!) I can be sure it will work for my feed.
Have a Relaunch
If you’re fed up with your account right now, (as it would seem so many are based on my Twitter timeline!) then why not have a mini relaunch to make your feed match your brand or values more closely. Go through and delete photos that at the time seemed fun, but actually no longer align with the brand or person you’re trying to portray. Focus on aesthetically pleasing content that represents who you are now, not the instagram theme you decided you were going to go for a few years ago!
Picture Perfection
On Instagram yes we are bombarded with perfect shots that have been styled, restyled and edited for hours on end, but seriously, your feed does not have to look like that. Personally I like to spend a bit of time taking the right photo (I mentioned in this post that what looks like a deserted lavender field was actually full of tourists and it took hundreds of shots before we finally had a selection that didn’t have other tourists in the background!) and then I simply add a filter and post. I like to post content regularly and quite frankly don’t have the time to spend any more than five minutes editing my photos, so a quick filter is all I do before it’s ready to publish.
Find Inspiration
Scroll through instagram and save posts and accounts that have a similar aesthetic to what you want to achieve. My saved folder (from clicking the little flag underneath peoples photos) is my go-to place when I need some inspo, and just a few moments of scrolling through my favourite accounts is enough to inspire me to get snapping.
Interact with Instagram
As I mentioned in this blog post about beating the Instagram Algorithm, engaging with your community is essential for growth. Don’t be afraid to converse with your followers and others on Instagram, liking and commenting on photos you like, and answering questions you see on your own imagery. Being approachable and engaging with your audience will keep them coming back for more!
Consistent Content
They key to a good looking grid (which is a shortcut to gaining followers more quickly) is consistent looking imagery. As I mentioned previously, I use filters to achieve this. Whether I’m shooting indoors or outside, product shots or fashion photos, I use the same filter on all my photos to give them the same pinky peachy hue. I achieve this with a Lightroom Preset which yes, means I have to import my photos onto my laptop before they hit the ‘gram, but once they’re imported, it’s just a few clicks before they’re edited. It also means I can edit in bulk, so my shots are ready to go on the blog in no time at all. Spend some time tweaking the settings on lightroom until you find a lighting setting that you like the most and then save it as a Preset, then you simply have to paste those settings onto your newly imported photos each time you want to post a new photo.
Of course, taking the right style of photo to begin with is important, check out this post on How To Take Photos Like a Blogger for tips on photo styling, and lighting etc.
Be a Storyteller
I love to give a bit of a back story to my imagery on instagram; we’ve got a 2000 character limit and I’m not afraid to use it! Longer captions keep people engaged, and asking questions encourages people to comment too, so try that in your captions.
Create a Hashtag
If you want to connect with your community even more, why not create hashtags for those wanting to see more of a particular photo style? I have #FashionMumblrOnTheGo for those who want some Travel inspo, and most recently a few of my followers have started using #FashionMumblrMadeMeBuyIt when they snap pictures wearing things that they’ve bought after seeing them on my account, which I love!! Encourage your audience to use your hashtags to instantly add a wider reach to your images.
More On Instagram:
How To Beat The Instagram Algorithm
