10 Ways To Create Picture-Perfect Posts On Instagram
Welcome to ‘Instagram Mastery,' where the art of creating picture-perfect posts is unraveled! In this exciting journey through Instagram, we delve into the secrets of crafting visually stunning and engaging content. Whether starting or looking to elevate your existing presence, our guide has insights and tips for everyone eager to master Instagram. From choosing the right images to strategic posting, we cover all the essentials of Instagram 101. Transform your feed into a captivating story that resonates with your audience!
Jammed packed with actionable tips, this article will help you better grasp Instagram and provide advice to help you start getting glam on Instagram.
I'm going to share:
- How to create an Instagram strategy
- Using hashtags on Instagram
- Social media shortcuts – creating a workflow for your Instagram posts
- Easy-to-use apps to edit photos
Here's a webinar presentation that I created on Slide Share.
#1 Focus
The first step in a successful Instagram strategy is figuring out your goal for your social media presence on Instagram.
Start with a goal. What do you hope to gain by using Instagram? Do you want to create a visual portfolio of your work? Give customers a behind-the-scenes peek at what you do. Or maybe show a more personal side? Without a clear goal, you wonโt be able to plan your posts.
- Why are you investing your time on Instagram?
- Who are the people that you want to reach?
- What are your goals for your content? Visibility? Blog traffic? Sales of your product or service?
Create a persona for your ideal Instagram audience. Make a list of who you think will buy your products and services, and be interested in focusing your content on this group of people. You can use your blog demographics, Facebook insights, Google Analytics, etc. There's a lot of information to use to create your solid plan.
More reading:
10 Steps to an Achievable Instagram Strategy
#2 Develop a story
Create a targeted niche for your Instagram presence. This lets people know what to expect by following you and if they should follow you.
Tell a visual story of your brand using these techniques:
- Cohesive style of images or graphics
- Branded images
- Same color palette
Create separate accounts if you have more than one niche. My friend Sue Zimmerman has six accounts to cover her different business focuses. Sheโs increasing her business because customers of her store and clients for her social media consulting find her with hashtags.
A note of caution – only open accounts that you have time to manage well and have a maintenance plan.
I've hesitated to create separate niche accounts, but I'll soon launch an Instagram account for My.BookClub. My Book Club has its branding, logo, and topic, but I wanted to ensure everything was in place before publicly opening it. I'll build out the profile with content before I start sharing it. If you want to see what I have, this is my work-in-progress: My.BookClub Instagram account.
#3 Snap pics
Of course, you're going to need photos for your Instagram posts. When taking pictures, you take more than you think you'll need. It seems like you're overshooting, but when you go back and look, you may have only taken two or three photos. You can permanently delete the photos that you don't like later.
Think like an editor! Create a stockpile of photos that you can use to design posts over time. If you're taking pictures of your friends at a cafe, look around for other exciting shoots like the bookshelves, collections of eclectic coffee cups, or the hipster baristas.
I took all the photos in this post and the presentation on a trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina, on a street art tour several years ago. You never know your future projects, so take lots of great photos and thank yourself later.
Shooting your images in a 1:1 ratio or square helps you correct the photo composition. You can change the settings on your phone and many cameras to shoot square images. Give it a shot. (pun intended)
#4 Edit and crop
Editing and cropping can make or break your photos. Nailing down your style for Instagram can take some time, but once you find what works for you, stick with it.
These are a few of my favorite apps:
PS Express for iOS and Android
“Photo editing made fun, fast, and easy. Touch your way to better-looking iPhone pictures using slide bar adjustments, or let automatic one-touch fixes do it for you.”
“Perfect your photos in a snap with the new Snapseed 2.0. This app gives your mobile device the power and control of professional photo editing software, previously only available on the desktop. Now, with the tap of a finger, you can retouch, adjust perspective, re-edit, and more.”
“Over is the app for adding text and artwork to your photos. Designed with mobile creatives in mind, Over features standard and custom-made fonts and well-crafted artwork combined with a sleek design, easy-to-use functionality, and immediate sharing ability.”
“Create amazing text layouts that would normally take minutes – or even hours in Photoshop – with just a tap.”
#5 Filter it
Filtering can help to create a cohesive, stylized brand for your photos. If you find or create a filter you love in Canva, save the filter code to reuse in your projects. Here's a quick video on how to do that:
Or you can choose no filters and use the #nofilter hashtag. Be honest when you post because savvy Instagrammers will know!
Instagram has a beautiful set of built-in filters for you to use. I recommend shooting your photos outside of Instagram so they save to your camera roll and then bringing them into the filter.
Power tip: you can rearrange your filters by dragging them in the app, so put your faves on the left-hand side for easy access. This will help you be consistent with your filter and find them easily.
Afterlight for iOS and Android
“Afterlight is the perfect image editing app for quick and straightforward editing. Our simple design and powerful and snappy tools will give you the look you want in seconds.”
#6 Style it
Think theme and groups! Very successful Instagrammers think in terms of the grid. The grid is the top six photos that show on your Instagram profile. Michelle Phan's Instagram is a thing of beauty as she color-styles her grid by project and sticks to a color theme.
You can use apps to create big tiled images on Instagram that take up six grids.
Instagram created Layout, which is an app that you can use to create collages for Instagram or other social networks. To create a Layout:
When you open Layout, you can tap All to see every photo on your phone, Faces to see only the images with people's faces, or Recents to catch up to 30 of your most recently used photos. To create a layout:
- Scroll through your photos and tap up to 9 photos you want to include. Youโll see it in the pictures youโve chosen.
- Once youโve selected all the photos you want, tap the layout you like best from the top of the screen.
- Tap any of the images in the layout to edit that image. When you're finished editing, tap Save and choose whether to share your layout or save it to your camera roll.
#7 Hashtag it
Consider hashtags the glue that holds social conversations and ideas together.
Clicking on a hashtag can provide a wealth of information and potential connections. Here are a few ways that hashtags can be used:
- Real-time interaction with friends, fans, and influencers
- Reinforce your area of expertise
- Connect with other people interested in the same topic
- Create a social media campaign
- Brand awareness
- Catch the trends โ daily, weekly, or holiday
- Find valuable UGC (user-generated content)
- Rock out live events such as conferences
- Build out a social contest
Create a hashtag strategy. You can use up to 30 hashtags per post. Post a few in the original post and add more in the comments. Use industry-specific hashtags and create your own if you have a fun brand. If you have a unique hashtag, share it in your profile for visibility. You can find popular hashtags on websites and load apps that can help you.
Prepare for success. Save your hashtags to Evernote so you can access them on any device. Create groups of hashtags for different topics, such as creativity, travel, and inspiration. Itโs also helpful when youโre at an event.
Use only relevant hashtags. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT use popular hashtags that have nothing to do with your content. It's exceptionally spammy, and Instagrammers will unfollow in a snap.ย
More reading:
The Philosophy of an Instagram Strategy
#8 Post with purpose
Don't just post to post on Instagram or anywhere for that matter. Instagrammers are quick to unfollow and don't have patience for crummy content. Spread your posts out to give them time to breathe and post with purpose!
Does your post do one or more of the following?
- Educate
- Inform
- Entertain
What unique value are you adding to social space? Give people a reason to follow you by adding value with your content.
#9 Engage
Instagram is where brands get more engagement with their social media content. A recent study Forrester found “that top brandsโ Instagram posts generated a per-follower engagement rate of 4.21%. That means Instagram delivered these brands 58 times more engagement per follower than Facebook and 120 times more engagement per follower than Twitter.”
Asking questions is a great way to invite conversations with people that follow you. Here are a few types that you can try:
- True or false
- Ask for people's favorite something in a specific topic
- This or that
- Did you know?
#10 Build your tribe
Building your tribe is easy on Instagram using hashtags in your niche. Search on Instagram or use Iconosquare to find people using the same hashtags and discover new conversations to join. This search for #socialmediatips shows over 15,000 posts in the hashtag and six related hashtags that you can investigate.
From Sprout Social's blog, “Just as you monitor branded hashtags, you can identify popular hashtags in your industry to monitor for engagement and use in your posts. Join new conversations related to your brand by searching results for the hashtags you use, then examining hashtags used by people sharing similar content.”
Follow interesting people in your niche when you find them and engage with their posts when you follow them. To grow your tribe, follow 20 to 30 new people every day. This will help add great content to your home stream when scrolling through.
More reading:
Develop an Instagram Marketing Strategy
Bonus!
Here's the workflow I use for Instagram to use graphics and images I create on my laptop to get to my phone or iPad to post on Instagram.
I use Trello for my Instagram and Facebook Mentions post optimization. This way, I can add the text I want from my desktop and not worry about posting from my iPhone and not seeing the full post while I'm adding text. You can try Trello here – it's free and easy to use. I like it because it works seamlessly in the cloud, moving my information on my desktop to my phone or tablet. It's made posting longer posts much more efficient for me.
In Trello, you create different boards for each project, and each board can be filled with lists, and you add cards to the lists. It's super organized. (more about it here)
This is what my Trello Instagram WorkFlow board looks like:
I start by creating my image or graphic and then add it to a card in Trello. Once I add the image, I can add the text for my Instagram post in a comment. These are saved to my Trello board, and I can go to my phone to post. You can plan and create your Instagram content in a batch and then share it when it fits into your editorial calendar.
This is what my Instagram postcard looks like in Trello. You can add a checklist to your cards for super organization. You can also work with a team on Trello so they can add images or texts to Trello that can be shared.
More reading:
Creatively Boost Your Editorial Calendar
I hope that you enjoyed this breakdown of how to post on Instagram. With some creativity and work, you can create a super-targeting niche Instagram account and grow your brand with solid engagement. I look forward to engaging with you on Instagram!
Let me know if you have any questions. I'd love to hear how you post on Instagram, too!
Yay, Trello workflow! The screenshot was TREMENDOUSLY helpful. I get it now. ๐
I was hoping you’d created a Slideshare of your webinar presentation, and I wasn’t disappointed. I love the level of detail you have in this post, and I’m sure I’ll be back to reference it again and again!
Thank you for putting all of this together.
always so well organized Peg. Happily sharing with my network – tons of value.
Just waiting for WordSwag to hook us android users up ๐
What a lovely, helpful, informative post! I’m so glad that I stumbled onto your blog by way of Regina, you ladies are awesome! I’m Instagram obsessed and I’ve been using some of the tips that you mentioned within this post with great success. ๐ Can’t wait to go stalk your blog some more! ๐
xoxo
Allison
http://www.wonderlass.com
I love the styling your IG recommendation. And that does take effort and focus for sure! But makes such a difference when people look at an account to follow.
Great tips, and I really enjoyed the webinar too. Thank you again – Anna
Peg;
One thing is for sure Nothing good comes whithout effort!
I am only starting in the social media affairs And I found your Tips extremely usufull thank you very much…
On the other hand I had no idea of how much hard work it takes to do this… I am not good with informatic stuff my work is people so my head almost blew up with all the information lol…
But I got some of the tips and learned a bunch of stuff.
Once again thank you.
Rodrigo Fraga
Hi Peg,
Thanks for your wonderful info. This might seem like a silly question, but how exactly do you transfer information like photos and posts from Trello to Instagram…new at this and having a hard time figuring it out…thanks!
Holly
I’m having the same problem. How do I get my content out of Trello to post to IG?
I’d love your guys advice! I love the look of large tile images that use up 6 squares to showcase a product’s details. However the obvious concern is afterwards I’ll need to forever post in 3’s to maintain its structure! Is this something I should only be concerned about until its pushed to the bottom of my profile feed? Or should I always post in 3s after? I don’t want to ruin the profile (it’s for a client too)
What’s your strategies on this? Thanks!