Social media has grown into much more than just a tool to help us connect with our loved ones. Now, depending on how you use it, it can help make your chances at finding a job better or even earn money through it. But to get any use out of social media at all, you need to follow a certain set of rules and best practices.
One of those best practices is to make sure your Instagram feed is attractive and eye-catching, and that people want to look at it or spend time scrolling through your profile. Everyone keeps saying it again and again, but you really would be surprised at how much first impressions matter.
If you don’t like the way your Instagram feed looks right now, don’t worry. Nothing says you can’t start right now, and this article will tell you how.
High Quality Content
People are just now realizing how true the saying “the internet is forever” was, and it’s no secret that the photos on Instagram today are highly curated and need to look a certain way. At the very least, your photos need to look high quality and well placed to catch any type of positive attention at all.
Facetune’s selfie apps are just some of the tools that can help you make sure your photos come out flawless. If you want to take your content a step further still, you can use apps and platforms like Cannva or even Procreate for stunning, eye-catching brilliance.
Use Real Estate Wisely
By real estate, we don’t mean the properties you own, but the limited space in your Instagram bio where you can write your information and tell people about yourself. Anyone who wants to get the most out of social media needs to make sure these spaces are filled in correctly, but the actual advice depends on what you’re using your social media for.
If it’s just to connect with friends and family, you can get away with worrying too much about it. But if it’s to make sure you’re getting the right professional opportunities, or if you’re hoping to get any sponsorship deals out of it, you’ll need to make sure you include things like an email button in the bio, an address, a proper introduction, links to your websites etc.
The more information you give about yourself and what you do in your bio, the better. Couple this with a good profile photo and great content on your feed and you’ll have a better time making use of your social media for whatever purposes you want.
Pick a Theme
All of the content on your Instagram feed needs to be well made, yes, but it also needs to go well together. This is where themes come in – you can pick a particular style or aesthetic for your feed and make all your Instagram posts go together.
Now, you don’t need to use the same Canva template for each and every one of your text posts, but as long as you use the same filters, the same fonts, and more or less the same aesthetics for your photos you’ll be set.
You also need the right balance of text posts, close-up photos, and selfies in your feed. Only you can decide what this right balance is though, but it’s hardly ever an equal ratio. One kind of post could be more in demand or more important to your purposes than the other.
A Proper Display Picture
Your display picture – like it or not – is displayed nearly everywhere with your name, especially on Instagram. It appears on top of your posts in people’s news feeds, next to your comments, and of course is right there at the top of your profile.
This makes it extremely important that you have a high quality display picture, even if it’s going to be pretty small. It can be anything from a clear photo of your face to a logo, but it needs to be obvious what’s in the photo from the minute people lay eyes on it.
Plan Your Content
We talked about how content on Instagram is curated and controlled. It then goes without saying that it’s far from spontaneous either – even the stories and posts that might seem spontaneous. People plan what they’re going to post on a particular occasion days in advance, and it’s a smart move that you should be copying too.
Your Instagram feed is too important to be taken casually if you’re looking into articles like this one, and you need to treat it like that too. Make sure you know what you’re doing with it and stay consistent with your plans.
You can even use social media management platforms that allow you to judge what your feed will look like after you make a series of posts, and then schedule those posts accordingly.