I have blogged before about my new found love for Instagram. I want to share with you some things you can do today if you feel you need to up your Instagram game.
I used to treat Instagram as another platform like Facebook, I would post any pictures of our days, occasionally an inspiring quote and I didn’t really ‘get’ Instagram. Then, I went to a couple of Instagram workshops one with Fable and Folk and the other with Capture by Lucy; these workshops helped to change my Instagram life! In a conversation with Lucy, I shared that I struggled with the idea of Instagram being too contrived and not real, her response was that I should think of it being
Curated not contrived
Those words of wisdom stuck with me and formed the basis of a huge transformation of my feed and also of my feelings towards the platform. Her wisdom had paid off for me, I made changes and my followers have grown hugely since doing so. In October last year I had about 2.5k followers and I now have 6.4k (as of the start of March 2016). I don’t know about you but I think almost 4k growth in 16-20 weeks is pretty good.
So, I wanted to share with you how to curate your Instagram feed to help boost your follower numbers.
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Choose a theme/aesthetic
Some people pick a topic and only post pictures corresponding to that topic, for example food. You may find this is a little restrictive, if so, then it might suit you better to pick a particular aesthetic and stick to that. Do you like bright, colour pictures or are you a fan of the darker palette? Figure out what you like, then think about what is practical for you to achieve. You may love photos using props, but unless you had lots of props it might be difficult to achieve.
Here are some examples to illustrate how a particular aesthetic can be used to unify a feed.
@mrsanjolson – I am a huge fan of Ang’s feed and I think I would know her pictures if they appeared anywhere, which shows how much she is killing her aesthetic. Anj’s images are thoughtful, dark and stunning.
@littlewoodlife – Emma’s aesthetic is lighter and gives off a totally different feel. Although her images have colour, all of the pictures are light and share the same tones. See how they all fit together, even though there is variation in the subject?
@mummydaddyme – Katie’s feed is a great example of a bright, colourful aesthetic. Katie’s children are her main subject and the colour of their clothes add to the bright captures.
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Stick to a particular edit on your images
Editing your images can be as easy as adding one of the stock Instagram filters. However, if this sounds like you, I would recommend trying VSCO cam, this is an app which gives you more filters and more flexibility to adjust filters to get your image exactly as you want. Maybe you want to edit your images in lightroom and then upload; whichever works best for you, find a look you like and stick to it.
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Look at your feed in it’s entirety not just one image
You need to look at your feed as a whole, rather than just focusing on each image at a time. Think about how your pictures will look in the grid. Do you post close up portraits, black and white, landscapes? Try not to clump the same type of picture on your feed. So for me I will try to mix it up, post a close up, then a wider shot, then a black and white. I would never post two black and whites side by side. You want your feed to look balanced, when someone looks at your feed as a whole.
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Protect your aesthetic
When you have spent time crafting your theme and you have a lovely gallery of images that all tie together and tell your story, don’t wreck it my posting something which doesn’t fit and will stand out like a sore thumb. It will spoil your aesthetic and people will unfollow you, yep they will unfollow you on the basis of one duff picture. I have turned down paid brand work because the product wouldn’t fit with my feed. So protect your feed.
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Plan
My friend Amy and I joke that there is nothing ‘instant’ about our Instagram feeds. It is real life, but it is the more beautiful moments and might be a day or so later than it happened. I would recommend setting some time aside to plan your images for the week and write your captions. You can then use a scheduler such a Buffergram so you can have a week in the bag!
This alone will not take your feed as far as it can go in terms of building your followers, but I will talk in more detail in a future post about what to do next when your feed is red hot!
Comments 28
I’m so glad I found you on IG and always look forward to your photos! I have no doubt your follower base will continue to grow at record pace. Thank you for the tips I love your blog too!
I love this, I think I’ve improved my feed since I’ve started blogging but it still needs a lot of work. I need to take a lot more photos ‘just because’ so I’ve got a stack of instagrammable ones ready to go I think. Also, I try to use Instagram to drive traffic to my blog, so I put up photos relating to posts with a comment to read more on the blog. Is this the wrong thing to do, do you think? Does it annoy people? I’ve noticed that you don’t promote your blog on instagram so I’m curious why.
For me IG isn’t about promoting your blog all the time. I’ve seen feeds which has no photos just quotes, and mostly blog ‘pictures’ – well, title in a background.
I think fine to have a nice image, make a comment and then mention people can find a post by finding the link in the profile. But personally I’m not a fan. I want to see photos on IG because that’s ultimately what it should be about.
I love this post Aby, so helpful and thank you for mentioning me, I have never thought of it like that before but it is so true that we all seem to stick to a similar theme and colour pallet. I find instagram such a tricky one, I never really know what I am doing with it- sometimes my instant, more ‘real life’ iPhone photos get more interaction and likes that a really pretty DSLR shot I thought would do well! I think I am learning all the time with it. I love your feed and I love your community with Amy too- I must join in. I dipped my feet into hashtags for the first time a couple of weeks ago but I only lasted about a few days cause I had no idea what I was doing haha! xx
Great post, I’ve found your previous post with tips on Instagram very helpful too. I’ve recently been working on improving my feed and being more consistent which has made a difference. Thanks for sharing and I love the beautiful shots and quotes on your feed!
Instagram is by far my fav platform, I adore it! #TheList
Wow – well done on growing your IG feed so quickly. Really great tips that are really useful as this is something I struggle with. #thelist
Another great post full of really use tips, you are becoming quite the instagram expert! My feed is so inconsistent, I really need to work on it xx #TheList
This is so interesting. I have been working on my photos for sure. I find having a longer description helps for interaction, rather than just one word or an emoji x
Great tips here Aby. I’m getting a little frustrated with my Instagram feed at the moment as I just can’t decide on a constant theme that I both like and fits in with my real life. I do love the crisp bright images but I’m not sure my real life fits into that. Think I perhaps need to get using lightroom. Your feed is swoon-worthy! xx #TheList
I have been thinking a lot about my instagram feed at the moment and I am going to take your advice and find my aesthetic!
I really enjoy IG and love littlewoodlife’s feed too. It is so bright, homey and lovely.
#thelist
Thanks for this Aby. I go through phases with Instagram. Some days I am all about creating a theme and others I lose the run of myself and post whatever I like the look of. I need to get back on track.
#thelist
Some great tips on here thanks Aby. #TheList
This is lovely! I am so addicted with instagram lately and I am trying to have a commoness to the photo. I am trying not to over post too! Thanks for this!
Great tips, I love Instagram, I am useless at remembering hashtags though.
Definitely going to have a bash at improving my instagram!
#thelist
I’ve never given my Instagram feed that much thought but what you say makes total sense! Thanks for the advice! #thelist
Instagram is by far my favourite social media, definitely going to take away some of these tips and apply them to my Instagram. Thank you for sharing some great advice 🙂 #TheList x
Great tips and ideas X #thelist
I love how people can keep their IG feed to one style and feel but I still love my IG feed being instant and varied, depending on what we’re doing etc. I can’t imagine scheduling IG posts or making them all look the same but I guess it depends what you want out of IG. For me it’s just another way of sharing an insight into our life rather than about follower numbers and numbers of likes etc. Great post though with really good advice for anyone wanting to grow IG and create their own style x
I totally agree with you Donna. I prefer the more instant (providing it’s not a rubbish photo), rather than the perfect feeds. I’m too much of a purist having been on IG from early on. It’s like I prefer square photos only.
Pretty pictures are fine but they can be so dull when they’re just all the same.
Although having said that, if I’ve not been taking photos I might add one from the day before if I really like it. And at the moment I’ve got myself into a habit of having a vertical row of N photos with the others miscellaneous ones. But I haven’t seen an increase in my figures since doing that, so I don’t think it’s made any difference at all apart from making me feel bad for doing it and being less natural.
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I think that is the beauty of the platform, you can use it how you want. Personally I get so much enjoyment from the way I use Instagram, much more so tan previously. I am being contacted about purely IG projects and my followers are growing at a brilliant rate, which is important for my business.
Great post and thank you so much for mentioning me! The thing about curating your feed is that it’s still very much a reflection of your life, where you go, your family, your home, what inspires you etc it’s just that you post with purpose. So all my photos are real, I just choose when I post them. So I wouldn’t post two food pictures next to each other or two florals if I can, because I like my feed to be a total reflection of me and everything that makes up our chaotic but wonderful life. So you can see there are weeks when I am hectic because it reflects subconsciously in my feed, the photos fill the frame more, it’s a mash of colours and others where I am feeling more in control will have more flow in terms of colours, more negative space in the photos. I look back and think I can see when I was having a stressful week, but I didn’t contrive it that way, but rather the photos I took in that given moment were influenced in some way. I think Instagram teaches you that you don’t need to be so literal too. A beautiful image can represent anything you want – it’s your feed and you can be as creative as you want! I think there’s a lot of backlash against “perfect photos” and that’s why I share my behind the scenes posts. Like lots in the blogging community my IG feed has become as important as my blog, almost like a blog of it’s own and there is nothing wrong with holding your head high and taking as much pride in your gallery as you would your blog. In terms of the quality of the content, imagery, text, how one post fits with another. People use it in a totally different way to Twitter and Facebook. You generally don’t scroll back through someone’s FB photos or their Twitter photo gallery but with Instagram the past is interesting. You can tell that through your notifications, when someone finds your feed and has a good nose! And they like photos from weeks maybe months ago. It’s amazing to see you so in love with it and for all your hard work to be so rewarding. Happy snapping! xxx
Thank you very much for these great tips Aby. I am at the moment working on this. The more I do the more I find it really time consuming. I’ve heard of Latergramme before but I can not use it as my phone already takes up a lot of memories with all other apps. Kind of looking forward to April – as I will be getting an iPhone for my birthday present to self. hehe 😉 Anyway, I will check out the Buffergram as you have mentioned. Thank you again – very useful.
This is really interesting. I’m new to Instagram and didn’t realise it was so… curated. I have my account set to private. I know I’ll mostly be uploading photos of my kids, and at this stage I don’t feel right sharing everything publicly. I guess I need to be prepared to not have my blogging take off anytime soon…
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Hi, it depends what you want from it. Instagram can be replaced and instant if that is how you enjoy using it. The accounts that tend to grow fast are usually the curated ones, unless you are Beyonce 🙂 The only think which will stop people following you is that your account is private. People will be reluctant to follow when they can’t see your images
Love the points you make. Particularly about it not being instant! I’m literally just upping my IG game and loving thinking about what I’m going to post. I’m only doing one at day at the mo. Thanks Aby 🙂