When you create a brand, you want your followers to connect it to a certain image. The gift of Instagram has been given to businesses that want to sell their image and message to a large network of consumers. However, building a beautiful Instagram feed is a craft and should be done with intention and care. Here’s how to do just that.
1. Establish Brand and Content Guidelines
Before you aimlessly start posting pictures to your Instagram page, you need to outline what exactly you want to accomplish with your feed. Do you want to paint a lifestyle that your followers will associate with your brand? Is there a certain theme you want to follow throughout all your posts that subtly connects each one to the next to give your Instagram congruency? Establish brand and content guidelines that include the brand message you want to convey through your pictures and figure out the type of content that will be able to express it. Understanding your consumer base is key to influencing this strategy, so do your research on what interests them and apply it to your content so that the likes can reach their ideal spikes.
2. Planning and Timing Posts
On top of determining content and brand guidelines, you’ll want to create a schedule for when you’ll post and what you’ll post. The timing of your posts should make sense to your followers. For example, if there’s a holiday coming up, planning to share a holiday-themed post is most fitting. Or if it’s dinner time, perhaps posting a relevant, food-related picture would interest your consumers.
3. Get the Shot
Starting with a quality picture is key. When you’re not using a full blown traditional camera, which let’s face it, most are not, the latest iPhone 7 is ideal for getting the Instagram shot. Its “wide color capture” feature allows the camera to take brighter, more vivid pictures—ones that will likely catch the eyes of anyone scrolling through the Instagram feed. Instagram also has updated its app to support this expanded color scale. Additionally, the app imports Apple Live Photos seamlessly by converting them into Boomerang photos through Instagram Stories. These small perks of taking pictures from the iPhone 7 and using them on the Instagram provide ease of use and a practical way to post pictures in a timely fashion.
4. Edit Accordingly
There are so many photo editing apps out there to choose from. Find the right one that fits your editing needs. Snapseed is a top choice among Instagram users because it adjusts color and contrast and lets you make minor adjustments to photos that still allow for them to look natural. If you want to lay some text onto your photos, try out Overgram. You can add any words in a beautifully laid out way directly to the pic—which will catch attention immediately versus making the follower read the caption below the post. To create collage-type posts, use Pic Stitch. It’ll help you show multiple images in a neatly organized format to deliver your story. Action shots are always fun, and give a more static Instagram feed some life. Try out the Boomerang app to snap a moving image and capture it in just a few seconds. Whatever photo app you choose to use, make sure you maintain a solid editing routine. Before any photo goes up, evaluate if it needs to be adjusted for brightness, contrast, saturation—the basics, then go from there and edit with the fancier applications if it works with your content concept.
5. Build a Following
You wouldn’t want your beautifully planned, crafted and well-thought out Instagram feed to go unnoticed, would you? Without followers, you might as well not even bother. To build a following, start searching for key hashtags that your target consumers might be using—click on the resulting posts and start following their pages. Chances are, they’ll follow you back. Also look at other brands and celebrity Instagram pages that align with your brand concept and your followers’ interests. You can see who’s following those pages and like their posts to get some visibility.
As the saying goes, “if you build it, they will come”—which is especially relevant when creating an Instagram feed. Make it beautiful using the aforementioned tips and the likes will roll in, in viral fashion.
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