There are two ways to approach your business or brand’s Instagram feed. The first is to create a haphazard, unplanned, chaotic mess, while the second is to make a cohesive feed that will grab attention and stimulate engagement. If you want to grow your brand, you would naturally want to take the second approach.
Our brains like order and harmony, and color influences our minds and moods. If the first thing potential customers see when they look at your Instagram feed is a jumble of random photos, they’re not likely to stick around to see what else you post.
If the layout, colors, and tone create a cohesive, pleasing aesthetic, it’ll give visitors a sense of your brand’s vibe—the personality, the voice, and what it’s all about. If your feed grabs visitors’ attention, there’s a good chance they’ll become followers and, later, customers.
Below, we’ll go through a few tips that can help you make your Instagram feed look cohesive. Before we do that, though, let’s look at a few statistics that reveal the importance of the photo-sharing platform for businesses.
Instagram’s Important For Your Business
According to Hootsuite:
● Instagram is the 6 th most-visited website (yes, on computer!)
● The platform’s app has the fourth most users of mobile apps
● Over 1 billion people use Instagram every month
● Instagram use grew by 17% in Western Europe in 2020
● 200 million Instagrammers go through one business profile every day at the very least
● 130 million Instagrammers tap shopping posts every month
As you can see from these stats, Instagram is not a platform that you should ignore. Use the following
tips to create a feed that’s cohesive, attractive, and engaging.
Tip #1: Know Your Brand
We still use the expression “First impressions are lasting” because it’s true. The first impression that your Instagram profile should make on new visitors needs to be a good one. A cohesive feed with a definite aesthetic will give users a sense of who you are, what you do, and what makes your brand special.
The thing is, you can create a feed like that only when you’ve defined your brand, and you know your target audience. You undoubtedly have some idea of your brand identity and who you’re trying to reach, but keeping it vague is not going to help. Ask yourself what your brand personality is, what your core values are, and what your vibe is. Is it elegance or opulence, cool minimalism, or perhaps rustic adventure? Next, ask yourself who your target audience is, whether it’s ladies who lunch, sport-loving
students, or retirees. When you’ve answered those questions, you can start creating an aesthetic that reflects your brand.
Tip #2: Pay Attention To Color
Choose the dominant colors or palette of your Instagram feed aesthetic carefully. Your palette can reflect the colors you’ve used in your logo, but whether they do or don’t, they should reflect something of your brand identity. This should happen in a way that appeals to your target audience.
Don’t downplay the importance of color when it comes to the decisions that your followers or customers make. According to research, it can influence buying decisions by approximately 85%, and can create an 80% increase in brand recognition.
After choosing a color (or colors), incorporate it into all your posts. This doesn’t need to be in-your-face, and you don’t need to use the exact same shade every time. Using various shades from the same color family will still create a relatively uniform palette, which goes a long way to making your Instagram feed more calm and cohesive. If you decide on a few different colors, you don’t need to use all of them in every image. Instead, focus on one color for a number of days, and then focus on another color.
Tip #3: Edit For A Consistent Aesthetic
The images on the most put-together Instagram feeds look as though they were all shot at the same time and in the same light. Some photos may be from the same shoot, but as for the rest of them, it’s thanks to editing that they were able to become a part of the cohesive aesthetic.
Editing each photo manually can be a tedious, time-consuming chore, but you can save yourself all that hassle by using presets that, at the touch of a button, will apply all your preferred settings to an image. You can use Instagram’s provided filters, or you can apply presets to your images in a photo editor such as Adobe Lightroom.
Tip #4: Use Your Best Photos
Take more than one photo at a time, and don’t necessarily use the first photo that appears in your gallery. Instead, sort through your photos, discarding the duds and choosing the best from among the remaining images.
Your best photos don’t need to be perfect. The imperfections in images can add interest and character, ultimately making for a more interesting feed. Strive for quality, rather than perfection. It’s much less hassle and stress that way—trust us.
Tip #5: Plan Ahead
Your Instagram feed appears as a grid of three images across, and you need to bear in mind that the majority of viewers will peruse your profile on a mobile device or laptop. Working with such a small space effectively requires proper planning.
When you know which photos you’re going to post, work out which ones look good next to each other. If you have several dark images, slip in a photo that brings in a burst of color. If your brand colors could do with more highlighting, add a photo or two where needed.
Plan between 9 and 15 images ahead and make life easier for yourself by using tools such as Hootsuite’s Instagram scheduling feature, Planoly, or Later. You can play around with the order of the photos as much as you like without posting anything until you’re ready. You can schedule your posts to be published on specific dates at specific times, so you don’t need to worry about forgetting to do it yourself.
Conclusion
Making a cohesive Instagram feed doesn’t happen overnight. It takes effort and planning, but once you’ve done the groundwork, the rest should follow easily. When it does, you’ll see what a difference it makes to your Instagram following and engagement.
