Get with the grid! And if you don’t have one, you need one. On Instagram that is.
Are you a planner or a frenetic poster? Some people get caught up in the moment and throw any old thing on Instagram. But this urgency should be stomped on before you wreck havoc with your Instagram grid. It’s easy to spot the difference between a well planned Instagram feed and one that’s, well, gone rogue.
Planned: There will be an obvious aesthetic, style and feel that flows throughout the feed.
Unplanned: Trust us … you’ll know!
Here are some of our top tips for planning your Instagram grid:
1. Stay on brand and keep it cohesive
If you want to grow your following and audience while highlighting your brand’s unique style and tone, your Instagram feed is a great place to do this. Make sure you create a grid that captures all the important parts of your business, while still staying on-brand and following your distinctive aesthetic. Capturing your brand’s style and colours throughout will keep things cohesive.
2. Choose a look and feel
Consider how you want your grid to look. When people first come across your Instagram account, what is the theme they will see? Dark and moody or light and airy? Inside shots or outside ones? How do the pictures you’re using relate to your brand? Will people see cohesion or chaos? The saying ‘first impressions last’ certainly applies to Instagram, so make sure your grid screams out your brand and tone (or whispers it gently if you’re a meditation guru). A mood board is a good place to start.
3. Use filters consistently
A simple yet often forgotten step is making sure you use the same filters on all your pics. There are plenty to choose from, but the key here is to be consistent by using only two or three different filters when you edit your pictures. Don’t go crazy trying to look clever and creative – get back to basics and think ‘how will this look 10 posts down on my grid?’. (Besides filters, there are also lots of other tools out there to help create engaging content on Instagram.)
4. Ask yourself, does this and that go together?
So you’ve got some great shots, you’ve put a filter or two on them, edited out the bad bits … but how do things look next to each other? The key word here is balance. Busy photos? Quiet and calm photos? Which goes where? Again, think about how it balances out across your whole grid. Images need to be positioned in such a way that people can easily move through the feed without interruption.
5. Plan plan plan
It really is true, the devil is in the detail and the ‘make or break’ of your Instagram feed comes down to planning. So while it may seem easy to pull together a show-stopping, aesthetically pleasing, ‘o for awesome’ Instagram grid, there’s a bit more to it. Ironically, it takes time and planning to create a grid that has an easy-on-the-eye, effortless aesthetic.
If you’re looking at your Instagram and thinking ‘Good grid!’, then get in touch. We can help.
