Instagram has quite literally taken over the social media world, with more than a billion people interacting with Instagram every single month – many of them spending hours and hours on Instagram each and every single week. Creating shareable images and content on Instagram that not only builds you up as an attractive follow on the platform but also really resonates with your target market and gets them to engage and share your content more frequently. Here are some tips and tricks on how to create stunning images for Instagram!
Tip 1: Use The Rule of Thirds
The Rule Of Thirds is a technique that professional photographers use to draw a viewers eye to a specific subject. What the Rule of Thirds says is basically to place the main subject of your photo along the grid lines or at their intersection points.
Tip 2: Pay Attention To Your Light!
Even if you are taking photos with your iPhone, you can still get get photos if you find good lighting. If you’re shooting inside, try to take your photos by a window. If the light is really harsh, try getting a diffuser or some thin curtains to make the light a little softer.
If you’re shooting outside, the best time to take photos are early in the morning and about an hour before the sun sets. During the middle of the day the sunlight can be really harsh and isn’t the most flattering. So, if you can, plan to shoot your photos when the light will look the best.
Tip 3: Create a Consistent “Look”
If you’ve looked over some of the most successful Instagram accounts, you’ve probably noticed that their feed has a “look”. Whether that’s a color scheme, use of certain fonts or filter, or even a pattern in types of posts, these accounts have a certain consistency. This is a great way to solidify your business identity and make your social media account an extension of your brand.
Tip 4: Learn To Edit
A few tweaks here and there with an editing app on your phone will instantly make a difference in your photos. My favorite editing app is VSCO.
It takes some time to develop an distinct editing style, but to start you can play around with the exposure, contrast, temperature, sharpness and saturation. Shooting in the same light and then using the same editing process will help you develop that consistent look.
Tip 5: Keep In Mind That Instagram Will Probably Crop Your Photos
As you know, Instagram photos display as square tiles and that’s something you need to keep in mind, especially when you take pictures that you plan on posting later.
Keep in mind the square crop when shooting so that when you do post your photos, Instagram doesn’t crop out important parts of the photos.
Bonus Tip: Once you’ve taken beautiful photos, Don’t forget abut your captions!
A lot of folks kind of waste the captions that they have the opportunity to create on Instagram, and that’s a major rookie mistake you don’t ever want to make when looking to squeeze every drop of advertising leverage out of this platform. The captions that you add to your posts are going to tell the story of the image.
Now, you don’t necessarily have to hire professional copywriters to write these captions, but you definitely want to make sure that your captions spark interest, engage directly with your followers, and (ideally) push them deeper and deeper into your Instagram content or your marketing funnel.
The hashtags you use are going to be useful in getting new followers to your content, any tags that you use are going to help drive effective marketing partnerships, and any links that you include should be used to boost your business by getting people actively engaged part of your marketing funnel.
