Instagram has become a very popular platform for businesses and brands to promote their products and services. Recently, Instagram was just a social media site used by the younger generation to upload selfies and pictures of their daily life. But now, its popularity has risen so much that people of all ages have started using Instagram, whether or not they are comfortable about uploading photos that reveal the minute details of their daily routines. Businesses realize this and, therefore, see the popularity of this platform as an opportunity to market their products and services in a cost-effective way.
Many businesses have Instagram accounts where they want to have enough followership to be able to promote their brand, without having to pay for the marketing. In other words, many businesses seek to get enough followers on their Instagram account that could get them good results through organic marketing. In order to do that, they need to learn how to create an awesome Instagram feed.
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Having the perfect Instagram feed is the key to capture the attention of anyone who visits your Instagram page. If you plan your Instagram feed properly, you can get more loyal followers on your Instagram account in a shorter span of time, even if you do not upload new photos as regularly as you think you need to.
For you are running a business and want to be successful in using Instagram as part of your marketing strategies, you need to know how to plan your Instagram feed. The good news is this is not a difficult thing to do. The younger generation is so adept at using Instagram for sharing moments of their personal lives you can simply observe the style that they use in their Instagram feed, and use it as Instagram feed tips to apply for your business.
Another thing you can do is hire someone as your Instagram planner, who can monitor the way your Instagram feed is designed and updated on a regular basis. You can even find such skilled people to work for you at relatively cheaper rates on one of the popular freelance websites.
But before getting into that hassle, let’s discuss a few Instagram feed tips that you can most likely apply to your Instagram feed on your own to boost your results.
8 Easy-to-Apply Instagram Feed Tips
Here are 8 tips that can help you create a perfect Instagram feed for your business.
1. Choose a Layout For the Instagram Grid
The layout of your Instagram grid helps visitors form an overall impression about your Instagram feed. That’s why you need to choose it carefully. If it looks neat and attractive, the visitor is likely to become your follower. If it looks messy or doesn’t suit the theme of your Instagram account, the visitor might feel put off.
The way to choose the best grid for your Instagram feed is by planning each square carefully. There are different layouts for the Instagram grid.
∙ Squares Layout
In this one, you take one square at a time and post a photo. This is actually the most basic grid layout. It is suitable for those whose focus is more on the colors of the Instagram feed than the grid that they choose.
∙ Checkerboard Feed
This is the grid that alternates between two post types or two colors. It is usually used to alternate a photo followed by a quote, and then a photo again. This layout is suitable for influencers, or for those who want to establish themselves as a subject matter expert in a specific niche.
∙ Row by Row Layout
This is a very interesting grid layout, which is suitable for those who like to narrate a story in each row. As a visitor scrolls down the Instagram feed that’s built in a row by row layout, their eyes move from the left to the right of each row as they read the content, just as though they are browsing through a catalogue or magazine.
∙ Vertical Lines Feed
This is the layout whereby the Instagram feed has a consistent background in the center that appears like a vertical line, and quotes or pictures are posted on the sides.
∙ Diagonal Grid
In this one, you post pictures that have similar aesthetics or items in diagonal lines.
2. Select a Suitable Instagram Theme
Instagram themes are visual aesthetics that are designed by brands and individuals for giving a cohesive look to their Instagram feed. Your Instagram theme will particularly play a crucial role if you are using Instagram as part of your social media marketing, as it will determine how you curate different types of your content.
There are different design tools available these days to create an Instagram theme of your own. If you plan to make several posts every week, use a design tool to increase the pace of your workflow. These tools offer color palettes, graphic elements, pre-set filters, and sometimes even video-editing features that really help you create an attractive theme for a perfect Instagram feed.
3. Decide on a Specific Niche For Your Content
It is important that you choose a niche for the content that you post on your Instagram feed and stick to it. People follow Instagram accounts for a reason. When they find the content that you post relevant to something they are looking for, they follow you to be able to easily view any new posts that you make. But if your content is very random, people will end up confused. They won’t be able to find a valuable enough reason to become your follower.
For instance, if one day you are posting about the cosmetics that you are selling, and the next day you post pictures of your cat, your followers will be confused. They might even choose to unfollow you. But if your followers see consistency in your posts and your Instagram feed, they will be more regular visitors of your account.
This is the same concept that applies to blogs. If you run a blog and want it to get good traffic, you need to write articles in a specified niche. Once you can establish a certain size of audience for your content, you can gradually twist or expand your niche if you will.
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4. Pick a Filter and Use it Consistently
The next among the Instagram feed tips is that you select a filter and keep using it consistently. It is not a good idea to change your filter for every picture that you post. It might feel adventurous or exciting to be able to apply different kinds of filters to different posts, but doing that does not really make your Instagram feed look neat.
5. Rearrange the Sequence of Your Posts From Time to Time
If you just upload photos and leave them like that, the look of your Instagram feed will become boring over time. A good idea is to keep changing the order of your posts now and then. If, for instance, one day you notice that a new picture you posted has colors that don’t go well with the picture that’s appearing right beneath it, you can drag and shift one of the pictures to the right or left to make the feed look nicer.
6. Coordinate the Colors of Your Photos
These two Instagram feed tips, the one before this and this, are similar to each other. You need to make sure that the look and the colors of your photos and posts coordinate well with each other. If you notice a mismatch, you can either edit the colors of the mismatched photo or rearrange the photos to make a pleasant flow of colors that look catchy to the eyes of the visitors.
7. Check the Background of Your Photos
Your photos must either have a clear background or a transparent background. Blurry or messy backgrounds make your Instagram feed look unattractive and not well organized. The best image formats always focus on the neatness of the image background.
8. Upload Good Quality Pictures
Good quality product photography always wins. If your photos look good, your Instagram feed will also look good. The good news is these days you don’t need an expensive DSLR camera to take good quality pictures. You can simply use your smartphone, and more specifically, the Instagram app itself, to take photos. You just need to choose the best ones among all the pictures you take to upload on your Instagram feed.
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These were some useful and easy-to-apply Instagram feed tips. Now let’s see how Strikingly helps you in making your Instagram marketing successful.
How to Integrate Your Strikingly Website With Your Instagram Feed?
If you build a website on Strikingly, you can easily integrate it with your Instagram account. From your site’s editor, select ‘Add New Section’ from the left panel. Then select ‘Social Feed’.
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In the social feed section on your landing page, you can insert an Instagram handle and link it to your Instagram feed.
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If you are interested in building a new brand website that can be integrated with all your other online marketing platforms, try out Strikingly. The website building and designing tools available at Strikingly will enable you to prepare and launch a complete website in only a few hours, without having to write any code.
