A well-groomed Instagram is not only about beautiful, aesthetic, and attractive photos. It is also about good content. In the second part of the Instagram series, we present how to take care of individual elements of posts.
If you haven't read the first part of the guide yet, you can find it here: Instagram Account Audit – Part 1
PHOTOS
Let's look at our account from a bird's eye view. The ideal scenario is that someone who enters our profile and looks at the mosaic of photos decides that they want to stay here because: it's nice and it's interesting.
We can decide to build a mix of entries: reels, photos, graphics. One option is to meticulously take care of the grid's appearance. It's good if the grid refers to our brand strategy.
If we are building a personal brand, the photos may as well be taken in accordance with the art of photography.
Let's pay attention to:
- background for photos (plain background – crazy, colorful object and vice versa),
- light (don't take a photo against the light),
- camera stabilization, clean glass, straight lines (let's not post crooked photos).
Let's not publish photos where you can see, for example, unclean dishes or sockets in the corner :)
And one last note about photos – it’s better not to post posters and stock photos on Instagram. On the one hand, it’s visually unattractive. On the other – you can see right away that the photo is from stock (especially if you’re using those from free banks).
Let's see how nice our profiles can look:
TECHNICAL
HASHTAGS
Hashtags are used to organize Instagram posts to make it easier for users to search for content. You can enter up to 30 hashtags, but Instagram recommends using 3-5.
Let's think about where the photo was taken (we are in a city, another country, a museum, a restaurant). It may seem that using a dozen million hashtags is a "point" for us. However, when we use the hashtag "coffee" our photo will be among the other 127,453,156 posts. The competition here is huge and it will be difficult to "stand out" among it.
You should pay attention to the size of the hashtags. You should have a mix in the set – several thousand, several hundred thousand (or even millions).
We do not recommend repeating the same set of hashtags in every post. It is of course worth having a base of a few constants, but to them you should add new ones that match the given content and photo / video.
Where do you get ideas for hashtags?
- from the competition,
- from Instagram's suggestions for hashtags. When we start typing ### similar ones pop up. We recommend checking them on desktop :)
LOCATION
Let's not forget about it both in posts and in Stories. Let's use different locations, even if our brand is stationary. Once let's provide the exact address, another time let's expand the action and mark "Kraków" or "Ciechocinek". Then, under the marker of a given location, our post will be displayed. The same will happen if we use the location in Stories - then our stories will appear in the collective History of a given location.
MUSIC
In some posts we will have the option to add music. Believe us, it's worth doing! ;)
ALTERNATIVE TEXT FOR INSTAGRAM PHOTO
In the alt text, enter what is in the photo, e.g.: a woman and a man sitting in a restaurant garden after dark on a summer day, drinking wine and smiling at each other.
LABELLING AND CO-AUTHORS
The option to add a co-author is a cool feature that can bring us more reach, reactions and followers. How to do it? When creating a post, instead of tagging someone in the photo, right next to it we have a button "add co-author". When we add them, the co-author can accept the invitation and then our post will also be displayed in their grid.
If there is a part of our team in the photo, let's say 6 people, then let's mark all of them directly in the photo. Let's mark the brands that appear there (important when we create a personal brand).
POST DESCRIPTIONS
Let's consider whether the first sentence grabs attention? Does it address the needs and problems of our target audience?
Let's try to create aesthetic entries. Let's leave large spaces between paragraphs and use emoticons. Of course, in moderation.
REELS
Reels are short videos published in a vertical format. The most important elements to take care of in Reels are:
- shots mixed with selected music, example Pilipalili,
- music (it's good if we use trendy sounds),
- subtitles (if it's a reel where someone is speaking), example,
- Reels covers (we recommend preparing separate covers to maintain the aesthetics of the IG grid).
Our Reels must be creative, interestingly edited. Since Instagram wants us to create reels (because it wants to fend off Tik-Tok's attack), it is worth creating them regularly and quite often. How often? At least a few times a month.
PART 2 SUMMARY
- let's pay attention to the background of the photo, the light and the camera stabilization,
- let's take care of the number and quality of hashtags, tag co-authors, locations and add music,
- let's prepare some hashtag lists for our account in advance,
- let's create content tailored to our audience and attracting their attention,
- let's create good quality Reels.
PS: Obvious, but most important at the end – let's interact with our recipients, after all, it's the media social :)