1 • Find Your Own Aesthetic
You probably heard that you need to stick to a subject to have a coherent feed. I actually disagree. I think you can diversify yourself and post about different themes (travel, fashion, food…). The trick is to have a cohesive aesthetic throughout all your posts. You need to find your own visual personality. To do that, scroll through your feed and see what your favorites photos have in common. Do you like having a moody, minimalist or colorful feed? You can post anything as long as it flows well together!
How do I find my own Instagram aesthetic?
First of all, the best way to showcase your aesthetic is by having a sense of unity in your pictures. To create that you need to have a consistent way of editing your photos. This doesn’t mean having only one filter. But you can curate a few and always use them to create a visual theme.
Secondly, you should choose your own color palette. This will also help with having a cohesive feed and showcasing your own style. I advise you to choose three dominant hues and repeat them throughout your feed.
Thirdly, always pay attention to the colors in your pictures (the background, the people, the clothes…). This is actually important to think about even before taking your photos! Always try to coordinate everything so it flows with your existing feed. Or edit it in a way that the colors will match your dominants hues.
This will allow you to keep the same visual vibe, have your feed flow naturally, and retain and secure the loyalty of your followers. I personally use my own Lightroom filters but there are a lot of easier apps out there that have great filters for Instagram. If you don’t want to use Lightroom, I recommend an app called VSCO.
2 • Maintain a Visual Balance
Now, that you have your own aesthetic in mind, you need to make your feed flow. For this, there are two important things to keep in mind; diversifying your content and spacing out the pictures.
Let me explain: if you have three selfies next to each other and then three landscapes with the same exact color – your feed will look sloppy and your followers will get bored. Spacing out and diversifying your photos is crucial!
How do I maintain a Visual Balance on Instagram?
You need to make your feed look more balanced by putting diverse photos that are evenly spaced out and also diverse colors next to each other (but be careful to stick to your color scheme!). You should also space out busy photos with more minimal ones. It will be easier for your audience to scroll through a balanced feed that has a good variety of subjects rather than a feed that only posts selfies/landscapes (unless this is your mono-theme niche, then go for it!).
I advise you to use Instagram planning apps to preview how your feed looks like and organize it before posting your photos. I use an app called UNUM and I highly recommend it!
3 • Post High-Quality Pictures
Well DUH! right? Actually, this tip is really overlooked (I am also guilty of this!). Even if Instagram started out as an app for you to post your phone pics, now it has become much more than that. High-quality photos are more likely to be liked, commented, stared at – which is really important with the Instagram algorithm that calculates how long people spend viewing your posts.
Posting photos taken from your camera instead of your phone (or a mix of both if you have a great phone camera) is crucial. Avoid at all costs screenshots, blurry or pixelated pictures. A nice-looking feed with high-quality pictures gives you credibility. To increase the impression of quality on your photos you can apply a few edits to them such as “enhance”, “contrast” and “sharpness”.
4 • Try Posting Regularly
All studies I have read advise posting once every day. I know that this is difficult for a lot of us especially in the travel field – you can run out of good content kinda fast! However, posting once every two days is what I choose to do. Posting often also gives you more chances to be on the explorer’s page. There is no secret, sharing regularly helps build engagement.
What is important as well is consistency. If you post three pictures a day then stops for two weeks, you will lose momentum and your followers will forget about you. You should do your best to maintain that same cadence of posting.
To be honest, I have a full-time job and consistency is hard to maintain. However, when you are passionate you can make it work! But don’t forget to disconnect sometimes and don’t force yourself to post too much if you cannot keep up. Only post what you like and don’t post pictures only because you have to.
5 • Love What You Do & Have Fun!
Now, don’t take everything I told you above as the “rule of Instagram’s feed”. Your feed will never look the way you want if you don’t love and enjoy what you do. Having fun is the most important! I myself break all the above rules all the time.
Be different. Get inspired by others but don’t try to replicate the themes/photos you see. As long as you find your own style and use the above as pieces of advice to put some effort into the look of your feed, you’ll have a rocking Instagram page!
What are some tricks you use to make your Instagram feed more attractive? Do you follow some editing rules? Do you do whatever you feel like? Let me know in the comments below!
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