4 tips on how to make your feed look better

Ever stumble across a stunning Instagram page and wonder how they have achieved it? Behind those beautiful accounts requires more than just pretty photos, it involves a great deal of planning behind it.

Instagram is constantly updating their app with new features, and I know it can be really daunting to try to keep up with the new trends and come up with new ways to attract your ideal followers.

The one thing that all successful accounts have in common is a visually appealing feed. This means the Instagram feed should have a consistent look and feel.

Your Instagram feed needs to be viewed as a whole rather than as individual posts. Those 9 images that appear on your profile feed are incredibly important. This is because when people see your profile, they are not only looking at your individual posts, but also your whole feed.

Your feed is the face of your business and is a form of your brand’s story. You need to have a great first impression and be able to grab people’s attention, as for you to be able to sell your products/services, you need to attract followers.

See below tips on how you can make your feed look better:

1. Know your brand

This is probably one of the main components that you should consider first before anything else. Showing a strong brand identity will help you stay focused when brainstorming your contents, which will allow you to keep on track.

Knowing your target audience well is also an essential part of a small business' marketing strategy. You have to be very clear about who you are speaking to and what value you can provide to them. Your brand's values should be communicated in a way that encourages your followers to engage and stay with you.

2.Decide on your theme

Think of your theme as your brand portfolio. You want it to reflect who you are. Many successful accounts have one thing in common, they all have a certain look, a significant look that represents their brand.

Finding your own theme can be overwhelming at first. It requires a lot of research so don’t get too stressed about it, it will certainly take some time to get your feed right to where you want it to be.

I recommend doing your own research by looking at your favourite accounts, writing down what you like about it. You could also create boards on Pinterest, and pin images that represent colours you love or those that appeal to your aesthetic sense.

When you plan the theme for your feed, think about what emotions you want your followers to feel when they scroll down your feed. It is worth looking into colour psychology because colours can have a profound impact on our emotions, they trigger our brain to think in certain ways. Think about what mood that you want your followers to feel.

Start thinking about the colour palette of your feed, it should be reflective of your brand's company. The colour pallet should have one main colour and possibly 2-3 supporting colours.

Make sure that once you decide on your theme you stick to it for all your future posts, as this will not only make you stand out but it will also become recognisable to people.

3.Editing Your Images

Instagram is a visual platform, so you shouldn't overlook it when it comes to posting visual content. You don’t need a DSLR camera and super high quality images to have a good feed. All you need is your smartphone camera and a few editing tools to do a little tweaking on your photos.

Mobile Apps I recommend for editing photos:

Adobe Lightroom Photo Editor (iOS and Android) - Adobe is widely known for its creative software and multimedia products. The app is free and has an excellent range of tools you can explore.

iSnapseed (iOS and Android) - Offers more than 29 tools and filters. This app has almost every feature you would ever want!

4.Plan your feed

After you have planned your guidelines you can venture out on the Planning feed app. To have a visually pleasing feed, the photos need to look good next to each other.

There are many free apps out there that allow you to plan your feed by uploading the photos without posting them on Instagram, these apps are great for you to test how things look next to each other and you can move them around. I recommend apps like PREVIEW, The Grid: Plan for Instagram and PhotoSplit for Instagram.

One last take away.

Creating a cohesive look requires time and planning, don’t worry if you don’t get it right the first time! Keep posting and explore and you will eventually get there!

Inge x