We get a lot of comments on our Instagram telling us how beautiful our feed is which is awesome because we spend a fair bit of time and effort on it. We’re not going to be those people who say they just throw any picture up at any time and somehow get lots of comments, likes, re-posts etc on every one. Or that we just use a simple point and shoot and somehow end up with bright clean and perfectly focused images. Nope. There’s a damn lot of work in making sure your work and Instagram feed is super polished. One of our favourite mottos is… “Go the extra mile, it’s never crowded” and we try to keep this in mind every working day. So if you’re ready to take your Instagram to the next level read our 5 tips for a beautiful Instagram feed!
Our top 5 tips for a beautiful Instagram!
01: Get serious!
Whether you’re running an Instagram account for your personal/lifestyle blog or for your business you need to get serious. If you’ve been snapping ‘behind the scenes’ shots with your iPhone, a plain old point and shoot camera or even your iPad then stop. Whilst it’s true you can take a great pictures with a smartphone or tablet for the absolute best quality we always use our DSLR and a 50mm lens. Treat yourself to a good camera, learn how to use it, learn how to style and get snapping!
This article on E!Online about celebrity Instagram accounts helped us better understand how to run ours so give it read.
We recommend…
- Canon EOS 1200D DSLR camera - We use a Nikon, but for beginners Canon cameras are slightly cheaper to run especially when buying new lenses.
- 50mm Canon lens - This lens is a lifestyle blogger favourite. It’s small and compact. It also lets in a great amount of light. Achieves gorgeous Depth of Field shots and is perfect for bokeh photographs.
- How To Style Your Brand by Fiona Humberstone - This book is not only stunning, but it is packed with tips and advice on how to style, market and photograph you or your brand perfectly.
- Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs by Henry Carroll - Learn how to focus, know what lenses to use, asses how much light you need, and tackle aperture and shutter speeds!
02: Pick your colours!
People react to visuals naturally, which is both good and bad in this age of social media. Good? The work is already essentially done. It’s like preaching to the choir. Bad? Due to people remembering or noticing images before text in their everyday lives you have to work harder to keep them interested and give you their likes and comments. This is where something simple like sticking to a colour scheme helps… majorly. Our colour palette is determined by our brand colours of gold, pink and white. We do our best to try and stick to these for a stylish and consistent feed. Obviously, because what we do relies on bespoke designs for customers not everyone is going to want pink, white or gold cakes. Our way around this is to implement a bright white in the scene when it comes to photographing our work. It’s the perfect neutral colour… clean, crisp and chic! We even add small styling props such as gold cake forks or gold rimmed champagne glasses into a shoot.
03: Calm down on the filter obsession!
A lot of filters are just too much and using them can dull an image instead of lift it. It’s generally like looking at badly lit Lomography photos that weren’t processed well. Be subtle and simple. We edit our photographs using the amazing Adobe Lightroom and they’re usually ready. Every now and again we’ll do a slight second edit on them using the popular VSCO Cam app on our iPads; specifically the strikingly subtle HB1 filter. It’s perfect. It slightly ups the contrast and then de-staurates your images a little for a faint bold yet retro look. Perfect for Instagram!
04: Be selective!
If you’re Instagram is linked to your lifestyle/travel blog or a business then you need be very very picky with what you photograph and what you share. It’s perfectly fine if you have a personal account to post up photos of you in your pyjamas there, but this is just a major NO for anything professional. By all means post up some personal shots, but remember to be selective and be aspirational (and remember all the other tips too… you’re on holiday, but the rest of the Instagram world isn’t). Holidaying in Scotland or skiing in Canada? Post up a snap of the landscape or your aprés ski treat. No images of a drunk falling over in a kilt or your log cabin being taken over by a moose OK? They’re funny, but they’re not relevant and they’re definitely not aspirational.
05: Timing is everything!
Now you have the perfect images and you’re ready to upload them, but you’re just not ready yet. If you have a UK audience and you’re up editing your photographs at midnight ready to unleash them onto Instagram… wait. You’re not going to get nearly as many likes or comments past 12am than if you were to post one up at noon on a weekend. Maybe a few insomniacs or some international Instagrammers. Keep a track of when you post images and what activity you get for a week or two to get to know your audience. Also, keep holidays in mind. If Saturday seems like a good day, but you get nothing from an amazing image post on the last Saturday before Christmas then it’s not you… it’s everyone else busy panic buying gifts! You can also sign up for Instagram analytics websites such as Iconosquare, or Minter.
There you have it! Our super handy tips for a beautiful Instagram feed! Put every single one of these snippets of advice into practice and you should be on your way to Insta-stardom!
1 Comment
This is an awesome post! Thank you so much for sharing!