Instagram is an ideal platform for promoting products, services, maintaining a personal blog, or simply increasing popularity on social networks. Visual design plays an important role in attracting new customers, as a beautifully designed profile inspires trust among casual visitors to your account, who can later turn into potential customers.
Instagram pushes to develop a sense of taste and aesthetics of a personal brand: you start thinking more about the visual design of a store or company, more often go to your profile, come up with new ideas. And in the end, all this has a positive effect on attendance of your profile and leads to an increase in the number of active subscribers.
When a person visits your account page for the first time, it is necessary that he immediately gets a positive experience and wants to subscribe to you. We can say that this is goal №1. If you successfully cope with it, then we can assume that 50% of the success is already in your pocket. Much here depends on how you work with the appearance of the profile: what is the general mood, the color palette, whether the photos are harmoniously combined and whether you want to look at them yourself.
You shouldn’t try to upload a huge amount of content. The photos that you post on your page should be interesting and attractive to your visitors. They should be different and unique, but all decorated in the same style.
Sure, creating a beautiful Instagram profile will take time, planning, and design vision, but it’s not too difficult if you find something that reflects your style or product and stick to it. So what’s the right way to start?
- Get inspired by other people’s profiles
Before creating an Instagram profile, do some preparatory work: analyze the accounts of other users, mark what you like most about their accounts and take note of this.
Think about how you would like to design your own profile. There is nothing wrong with borrowing or being inspired by someone else’s idea. In the end, the result will still be different, since each person is unique in his own way.
- Find your style.
Style is how your Instagram profile looks overall. This is your visual identity. What do you want your style to be? Grunge, moody, boho, tropical, colorful, minimal, or maybe white? - Experiment with profile colors.
The easiest, most popular and at the same time incredibly effective way to create a stylish account is to post photos in a monochromatic theme. Repeat the same color in different ways: using filters, objects, background color.
Want to be more expressive? Experiment. For example, change the color theme on each line of your feed, or add three product photos in one color, then three photos in a different color. As a result, it will look impressive and interesting.
- Use a checkerboard effect.
The theme of the chessboard is not only impressive, it captivates the viewer, encourages thinking about the images. You can create a board by alternating two colors, or by alternating text and photographs, for example.
Interesting fact: this method was used by many modernist artists. It looks impressive, appropriate and stylish.
- Change boundaries.
You can go against the system and turn the square interface into any other shape or change the aspect ratio of the photos. There are some simple yet effective options:
- Make a white frame. To do this, add white margins to the top and bottom of the photo. Thus, the photos will look more professional and unusual. And the unusual always attracts.
- Make a black frame. This will make your profile stand out as this is rarely used. But here you have to be careful: make sure that such a design matches your theme, does not spoil the mood and overall impression.
In general, black is a good find. Many are afraid to use it, fearing to create a dark and oppressive effect, but in the right hands, black does miracles, giving a strict “classic” style.
- The round frame is also a very rare effect. The problem is that the circle limits the possibilities: not all objects can get inside and it will be difficult to show them completely. But for the sake of experiment, you can try this method, if performed correctly, it is applicable. The easiest option is not to circle the main theme, but to use it from time to time to mix shapes to make it interesting and relevant.
- Create an overall mood for your profile.
To do this, you need to think: what is the purpose of your profile? What mood should people feel?
For example, if you are a home decor salesperson, a white minimalist approach would work as it is elegant and graceful. If you are an artist or photographer, you can try darker tones.
Keep in mind that the mood should reflect the essence of the product, company, or blog. If you sell swimwear, the decor should not be minimalistic and dark, but saturated and bright colors are more suitable here. Plan your topics in advance and keep working in that direction.
- Use filters.
Sticking to a particular color or mood is not easy. To make things easier for yourself, try using filters (select one or more). Adjust the settings for them so that your photos are in the same style.
Imagine the following situation: there is a great image that doesn’t match the filter you specified, but you still want to publish it. What to do? Publish. And then just add a few more photos in the same style so that it doesn’t distract.
- Reorder your posts.
Why do some Instagram accounts look so good? They look good because their authors know which photos look good next to each other and how to publish them correctly.
The trick is that you just need to change the order of your posts. It is quite difficult to guess which photos work best with each other, so it would be more correct to use special applications, where in Preview mode you can download the images you want and arrange them in the order in which you will subsequently publish them.
How do you know which photos are best to post side by side? Remember, your main goal is to create balance between your posts. To balance the look of your feed, arrange your photos based on the colors in them or even the subject or background. It is better not to publish too similar photos next to each other.
- Post photos that look like a grid.
A very powerful method that works for one big photo. Divide it into equal parts and load so that they form a solid image on the whole screen or on a whole line.
The entire grid should be published all at once, not every other day, to create the perfect profile view. And one more thing – you need to publish strictly in groups of 3, 6 or 9 images, so as not to displace the previous photos.
Good photography is certainly very important, but that’s not all. Say goodbye to blurry or grainy images. Use only high quality, high resolution photos. Play with composition, color palette, patterns. Try different angles: bottom, front, side, top.
Don’t just post ads on your account, create a harmonious profile. Do not forget about your style, make sure that your page really interests other people. And in this context, they will learn about what you have to offer them.
Perhaps you want to try everything at once, or maybe you liked only one of the listed methods. In any case, make sure it matches your account theme.
Instagram is one of the best social media marketing and promotion platforms currently available. Use it to its fullest and make yourself, your blog, or your brand recognizable.