Hello everyone and welcome to this community webinar on curating your Instagram feed. I’m Jamie and I’m the content creator at Blogosphere and a travel blogger.
Here is what we’ll discuss in this post:
- Firstly, what are the advantages and disadvantages of curating your Instagram feed?
- What ways can we curate our Instagram feeds?
- Engagement and being an engaging Instagrammer
- And some photo tips and apps to help plan out your content
Your Instagram feed can act as a shop window for your blog or website, so curating it can quickly give visitors a sense of your style and what you have to offer them.
This is a quote I came up with that summarises how I see the Instagram feed which is particularly relevant if you have a blog, website or online business associated with your Instagram account:
Your Instagram feed can act as a shop window for your blog or website, so curating it can quickly give visitors a sense of your style and what you have to offer them.
Instagram growth, engagement and curating your Instagram has been a frequent topic in interviews with influencers in our magazines and at some of our events.
For example in issue 17 we interviewed Instagrammers Jordan Bunker and Mat Bucket who shared their thoughts on curating your Instagram feed. Jordan posts men’s fashion and enjoys playing with light, shadow and texture of clothes in his images.
Jordan also warns that it actually can be quite a time consuming process and putting pressure on yourself to stick to a certain style may actually be detrimental to your enjoyment of the platform and stifle your creativity.
Mat has a much broader style for his Instagram feed and reaffirms my earlier quote that when you look at a person’s feed you get a feel for who they are.
So what are the advantages and disadvantages of curating your Instagram feed?
Aside from the quote I mentioned about it being a shop window for your blog, website or business, curating your feed can be a fun challenge that is going to help create an immediate impression on new visitors to your profile.
For me personally, if I come across a post I particularly like, click on their profile and find there’s lots more content with a similar feel, this tells me that if I follow this person or business, the content I’ll get going forward will be very much in-line with the content I’ve already interacted with and enjoyed from them, which makes me more likely to commit as a follower.
However, the points Jordan raises is something that I have grappled with myself as having a distinct style doesn’t allow for much flexibility with your content. There’s been numerous times where I’ve taken an image I’m really proud of but it just wouldn’t work on my Instagram feed. There’s also been occasions where I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find an image that fits with my style from the bank of content that I have, particularly during lockdown when I haven’t been able to travel and capture fresh content, so there’s possibly been many hours spent re-editing and cropping old images to make it fit my theme.
Another thing to factor in if you decide to curate your content is how will it work for the topics you cover – which may be particularly important if you’re a lifestyle blogger and have a range of topics on your blog.
For example, my blog is travel and cruising and the warm tones and style I use isn’t very conducive to sharing blue seas and cruise ships, which means visitors to my Instagram feed who enjoy cruising may not know about all the videos, blogs and interviews I have on this topic on my website – except for a mention in my bio which isn’t quite as enticing as a gallery full of ships and seascapes.
Because of this some Instagrammers create a separate Instagram account where they can post content that doesn’t fit their main feed but they want to share, or caters to a particular niche or subject – for example a fashion influencer like Lydia Millen creating a home interiors account.
If creating another Instagram account sounds like a lot of work, it’s something I’ve thought about myself but have yet to commit to – you could share different styles of content within a carousel post and use a related image that blends better into your feed as the first image, as this will be the one that appears on your feed.
Ultimately sharing top quality content, consistently, is king, as there are plenty of Instagrammers who don’t curate their feeds and have grown huge followings. I’ll be sharing tips on how to engage and grow your following later in this presentation.
So, if you are interested in taking the plunge and curating your Instagram feed, here’s a few ways that you can go about it…
Colour
Using similar colours and filters for each image in your feed is one of the most popular and easy ways people can curate their Instagram feeds. Even celebrities like Ariana Grande use this style to some degree.
This is a style that I like to use for my Instagram. I like using warm tones, which I hope creates an inviting and cozy feeling for new visitors. I do this using the ashby filter predominantly and upping the warmth and saturation on my images.
So, do you have a colour that appears to be a recurring theme in your existing content? Play on that by emphasising it and toning down the other colours. You can use apps like Lightroom and Snapseed to edit individual colours to ensure your colour scheme remains consistent.
If you use Instagram’s filters, consider narrowing down the choices you use by selecting one or a couple that have a similar feel and apply it to every image you share – tweaking the other settings (brightness, contrast, saturation…) as necessary.
Light
How you light your photos is one of the key elements to curating an Instagram feed.
If you add brightness and decrease any shadows you can give your feed an airy feel. You can see an example of how this would work in the images on the screen.
Alternatively you may enjoy experimenting with shadows like Jordan to create a more moodier aesthetic by emphasising deep tones and shadows in your shots and turning down the brightness and highlights.
I think how you light your photos can say a lot about your personality as well – when I see feeds that are really bright, colourful and sparkly I think the creator or brand behind it are probably very bubbly and fun as well.
Minimalism/Maximalism
How busy or sparse your images are is another key element to curating your feed. So if you have lots of empty walls, open spaces or sky in your shots – then that would be conducive to creating a minimalist aesthetic with typically only one subject/object being featured with a block colour or plain/neutral background.
This is a popular aesthetic for things like: Landscapes, sunsets, seascapes, countryside, mountains, astronomy, ultra modern architecture
When we interviewed Lorna Luxe for our podcast last year at the Blogosphere Festival, Lorna mentioned how developing a minimalist style was one of the things that helped growing her Instagram in the early days when not many people were doing it. If you’d like to listen to the full interview, head over to the podcast section on the Blogosphere website.
The opposite of minimalism is of course, maximalism. As a basic rule this tends to require filling the image, corner to corner, with the subject and leaving little to no space that is void of texture or detail.
So this is a popular aesthetic for: Cityscapes/streets, properties, magazines/books, food bloggers as well you use this quite a lot by filling their feed with enticing close up images of their dishes and flatlays
And finally another option is quotes and graphics.
If your main feed is usually full of different formats and styles you could post quotes or graphics in a consistent sequence (i.e. every 3, 4 posts) to help tie everything together. It’s a good idea to use a colour scheme and font that matches your personal brand/website for this – though you may find other colours or fonts work better for Instagram.
A few things to consider when using this style is to:
- Check the font is bold and large enough to read when viewed on the grid without people having to click to view.
- And ‘Saveable content’, so consider creating a carousel of informative content to entice people to swipe across, save, share and follow. I find the more saves and shares a posts gets the bigger the reach as a result, so think about creating content that people will want to save and refer back to later on or share it with someone because they find it really useful.
This is a style we’ve used various times on Blogosphere’s account with quote snippets from our magazine, audio snippets from our podcasts and more recently, industry information.
Engagement tips
This ties into my engagement tips – and I do believe if you want to improve your engagement rate then becoming an engaged member of the Instagram community is key.
Although I’m not the most qualified on this topic having just a handful of followers, I have changed my approach over the past few months which has not only made me enjoy Instagram in a new way, but has also improved my engagement and following.
Just a few months ago my follower numbers were fairly static, I’d gain a few, I’d lose a few, and growth was slow as a result. However, if my math is right, in the last few weeks I’ve grown my following by around 15% and have a current engagement rate of 11%, which is above the global average of 4.7% according to research by iconosquare.
So, to begin with, some of the more obvious points but worth reaffirming – is to follow accounts in your niche, engage and interact with them regularly and consistently.
If there’s any big Instagrammers in your niche, becoming an engaged follower may be picked up by other people that follow them who could check out your feed if they like what you have to say. Meaningful comments could also get pinned by the person or brand which will further increase your visibility.
It’s not just about being active on accounts you follow or with people who already follow you, it’s also good to find and engage with other users in your niche, instead of waiting for them to find you.
To do this you can follow and search for hashtags you frequently use, and engage or follow accounts from these who may not have discovered your profile yet. But remember while it’s great when people reciprocate and follow you or like your posts, it’s a bonus, and the main point is to become an active member of the Instagram community as a whole and to enjoy the platform by constantly seeking out new creators and fresh inspiration.
I wouldn’t recommend just liking a post because they’ve used a hashtag that relates to your niche, or litter a hashtag by liking every post as that could come across as spammy. Instead go through a hashtag periodically and search out posts within it that grabs your attention in some way, and perhaps leave a comment if you have something meaningful to say about it – make it a natural and authentic process.
Refrain from just commenting with emojis or one word comments as the person on the receiving end, particularly if they don’t know you, may think it’s just automated, like a bot, or not genuine – whereas spending some time to actually comment on something specific about the post shows you are a real person wanting to have a real conversation. If you dedicate a specific amount of time to do this, you may find your time on Instagram is more productive and enjoyable than just a scattered approach of responding to whatever the algorithm decides to show you that day on the main feed.
‘Join’ community groups – and by this I don’t mean signing up to a club or pod – I mean following and interacting with large accounts that repost content (for example for UK travel there are numerous groups like @igersuk, @photosofbritain, @unlimitedbritain, @yourbritain and so on. If you use their hashtag and tag them in the post, there is a chance they may repost your image and tag you in it which will give your account a big piece of free promotion to followers who are likely to enjoy your content as well. I believe this is one of the biggest factors in how I’ve grown my following over the past few weeks.
We already know posting consistently is one of the biggest factors in growing a following – and it makes sense – are people going to want to follow an account that hasn’t posted in weeks or posts sporadically by sharing lots in one go and then leaving them to collect dust? It’s down to you with how much you post, I believe a good rule of thumb is once a day for growth. I now try to post every other day, or about 3 to 4 times a week as that’s just about manageable for me, but try to avoid going over a week without posting.
There are some creators who leave longer gaps but you can tell have put a lot of time and effort into each post. Posting at a similar time of day can also be key. I find a lot of community accounts in my niche update in the morning, so posting around the same time works well for me as there is a possibility they may like my post and reshare it.
Reply to comments on your content, and perhaps think about checking out their profile and engaging with their content. Again I wouldn’t recommend reciprocating robotically, returning the love is great but make it meaningful if you are going to. There is a chance that if you do they may be inclined to interact with you again in the future because they know you’re an active member of the Instagram community who is responsive.
I’ve also started to make a point of pinning some of my favourite comments on my posts – and the person will receive a notification to say I have done so which hopefully shows them that I value the time they have taken to engage with my content.
Think about your captions, start a conversation or interesting point of view. There are some creators who make very long captions that are almost like mini blogs, full of facts and points of view.
This encourages discussion in the comments and again, may make people want to save the post to read and refer to later or share it with someone else. Although I’m no expert on the Instagram algorithm I think that if a post hits many different angles – so things like saves, shares and comments with your most engaged followers, then the post may go higher in feeds with less engaged followers, and if it that gets enough engagement it can end up in the top posts on hashtags and the explore tab which furthers increases the reach by exposing it to be people who don’t yet follow you.
Again, for good practice, if you pose a question or start a discussion, I think it’s good to do so naturally that reflects your personality – so think of how you can start an interesting and enjoyable conversation, like you would with a friend.
And as I mentioned earlier in the community accounts point, using hashtags and tagging relevant accounts is an easy way to expand your reach beyond your followers – just ensure what you tag is relevant.
Photography tips and information
So best practice is to ensure your images are high quality, and ideally you should export the width to 1080 pixels so there’s no need for Instagram to reduce or expand your image which may affect the quality. I like to post portrait images which is the 4 to 5 aspect ratio as it takes up more screen space on a mobile device, meaning there’s more chance of people stopping on the image as they scroll.
To plan out your Instagram feed in advance so you can ensure the content you post will work with your theme you can use apps like Planoly and Later.
So if you’d like to follow us on instagram, and I hope you would at least be following Blogosphere’s which is @blogosphere_magazine, and you can find me at @explorewithed.