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Let’s start off simple on day one by sitting down to define the types of content you’d like to share with your audience for maximum engagement.
Lifestyle and Aspirational Imagery
Some brands evoke a lifestyle with aspirational imagery, thus putting their service or product in the same category.
Humor
Others use memes, humor, or offer helpful tips in order to win over their audiences.
Don't Be Too Promotional
While ads can be effective on the platform, 80-90% of your posts should add value, not promotion.The most compelling brands on Instagram post content that speaks to their target audience’s interests, challenges, and experiences instead of simply selling to them.
To figure out what kind of content is right for your brand, define topics that are related, but tangential, to your main value prop. Then establish content pillars or categories that will guide your daily posts.
Some questions to ask yourself in order to define your content pillars:
- How do I want my followers to feel?
- Who is posting to this account? Can one person be the voice of your brand?
- What is my target audience interested in?
- If my brand was a person, what would they be interested in?
Once you’ve decided on the topics you’re ready to communicate to your audience, you could try putting them into a cycle so you can always keep an eye on what’s up next in your posting strategy. Try out something like this if you’re unsure:
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Now that you’ve defined your content pillars and set them out nicely into a cycle, you’ll have a rough idea of how you’re going to be engaging with your Instagram community. The next step is to create an Instagram calendar of social media holidays and trending hashtags you want to recognize on the platform.
A great way to get noticed on Instagram is to appear on the Explore section of the app. You can do that by using the right hashtags at the right time.
Using Hashtags
These hashtags are called trending hashtags because they temporarily shoot to the top of the list of most used hashtags. Generally holidays, like Tarte Cosmetics’ post on #fourthofjuly, will become trending hashtags, so be sure to pick up on them for an engagement boost! Pro-Tip: Check the Spark Post app for more templates for major holidays and social media days!
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#ThrowbackThursday (#tbt), #WisdomWednesday and #MotivationMonday are just a few of the most well known and loved trending Instagram hashtags. Brands and individuals can tag onto these trends to keep their communities interested and engaged throughout the year.
What’s more, if you use days of the week hashtags like the ones mentioned above, you can use them in a cycle and your audience will come to expect them and even look out for them if you’re doing a good job! Keep your eye out for popular hashtag trends which your business can relate to and be sure to use those hashtags in your captions for an engagement boost!
Instagram Trends
Check out this fun post by Moo with the #happyfriday tag
User Generated Content (UGC) is a way of getting customers to produce their own content in conjunction with your brand. UGC on Instagram often takes the form of Instagram contests or hashtag competitions, where brands encourage users to create their own posts following their guidelines.
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No matter what industry your business is in, there is always value in humanizing your company and making it feel accessible and real to your social media following. Feature the people in your organization, sharing photos from events, or celebrating milestones the way any Instagram user would. Showing the faces of your team members, sharing employee stories, and showcasing your brand helping the community is a great way to help your followers feel closer to your company.
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You have a fraction of a second to to stop thumbs from scrolling past your content, so don’t make your images do too much work. The key is to grab attention with your image so people are more likely to read your supporting caption. As a rule, snappy, concise messaging works best on social media. Think calls to action, slogans and powerful, emotional language within your images that compels people to stop scrolling.
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Stock imagery can be a lifesaver, especially if you’re not a pro photographer. But make sure you’re not sharing the same old generic images everyone else is. Luckily there are several interesting and original image sources available.
Fun fact: the image above was actually snapped by an Adobe Spark team member on vacation. It’s one of Spark’s most popular Instagram posts and the design has been remixed over 4,000 times, proving original imagery wins.
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Every great design has a focal point, and your Instagram posts should be no different! Having a clear focal point supports message hierarchy and could help users linger on your image. The key is making sure your image has one central focus. Like a paragraph or a sentence, an image should do just one thing. Create balanced imagery even if you’re combining multiple images, text, or shapes by making sure the elements relate to one another. A good way to establish balance is to make sure the text elements align either along the sides or are centered with each other. In Spark Post, you know you have good alignment when a dotted yellow line appears, indicating where your text lines up in relation to other elements in the design.
Take the event advertisement template above as an example. It packs all the essential information in one small place, but the title of the event is the focal point. The bold color and slightly askew shape makes sure that they eye lands on the most important piece of informations first.
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While there are always exceptions to the rule, this classic photography principle is behind some of the best pictures out there, and is a guiding force for both beginning and seasoned photographers. Execute the rule of thirds by imagining a 9-part grid in your frame and aligning the interesting parts of your image along the intersections. Adjusting the focal point in one third of the image will produce a more interesting shot.
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A white border can help your content stand out in the Instagram feed, especially if the image is bright and colorful. In fact, some users solely post photos with white borders to give their own feed an unusual, airy feel.
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Borders help ensure that elements in your design have room to breathe: an important aspect to consider if you want to avoid a crowded-looking design. Make a photo pop by adding a border in Spark Post to give your Instagram feed some white space. All you have to do is modify the margin of your design in the ‘Layout’ section of Spark Post, and everything else adjusts automatically for a great effect.
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Contrast is what makes designs readable. Creating contrast doesn’t just refer to choosing colors on opposite sides of the color wheel. Establish contrast with light, shapes, fonts, scale, white space and more. Contrast is important because it blends style and function. It’s what helps make your design both pleasing to look at and easy to interpret.
Play around with filters and the editing suite on the Instagram app. These editing tools don't get a lot of publicity, but they're really nifty and simple to use for great results. Adjust brightness, warmth, contrast, color and so much more with Instagram's tools, so try them out on your next Instagram post!
The three design templates above explore contrast in various ways. Can you spot them?
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Before you post anything to Instagram, ask yourself ‘would I stop scrolling if I saw this in my feed?’ We’ve said it once, and we’ll say it again: visually appealing imagery is one of the most, if not the most, important boxes to have checked. Of course, there’s more to creating the perfect image than meets the eye, and the best way to make sure you’re getting it right is to aim for balance.
Balance can refer to both the photo elements and text that make up an image. A balanced design has a clear hierarchy in terms of message, created by aligning text elements so that they relate to each other in a symmetrical way. The first thing anyone will notice about your Instagram post is whether all the elements fit together correctly. If the balance is off, you won’t get your intended message across, and you could end up with a crowded, messy feed.
A good way to establish balance is to make sure the text elements align either along the sides or are centered with each other. In Spark Post, you know you have good alignment when a dotted yellow line appears, indicating where your text lines up in relation to other elements in the design.
The above template is good example of a balanced design. Even though it combines multiple images, the consistent background color unified under bold type keeps it from being too busy. When creating collages, combine imagery that shares common elements like color, shape, or subject matter.
For more tips on how to create a balanced design, head over to the Adobe Spark blog and check out these 8 basic design principles to help you create better graphics.
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Take your design and its message to the next level by thinking of text as the main focal point. Instead of simply slapping text onto an image, play with text as an art component. One way to do this is to use text cut-outs, which fill the font with the image, color, or pattern you designate as the background image.
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Some font pairings are just meant to be. They work together to establish hierarchy or support the overall tone of the design through their own visual personalities. For instance, you might pair a bold header font like Raleway Heavy with a lighter typeface like Lato Light, or you might create contrast by using a decorative font for the title with a more modern or cleaner font for the secondary copy. The fonts you use also say something about your brand. The above font combination is great for bold, adventurous, and modern brands, while something more decorative could speak to a younger or more playful brand personality. Adobe Spark categorizes fonts by mood, such as bold, elegant, or decorative so you can easily pick fonts that will support your copy’s message.
A good general rule of thumb is to reserve decorative fonts for headers or short amounts of text. They can be hard to read in large blocks, while san serif fonts provide a clean look perfect for body text.
If you’re working with a header and subheader for, say, a hero image at the beginning of your blog post, you’ll want to make sure the fonts you use complement each other and strike the same tone. Check out other font pairings to learn what fonts can say about you!
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When it comes to your Instagram feed, less is more. We’ve found that clean, simple designs, like the one above, perform the best, especially since bold minimalism is so popular right now.
You don’t want to overcrowd your images with lots of competing elements, as this will result in a chaotic and overwhelming feed. Incorporate negative space (the space in and around the subject of an image) into your photos for a sharp, clean look. Making room for negative space is a particularly useful approach for brands aiming to showcase products, as there are very few elements to distract attention away from the items themselves. That’s not to say you can’t be creative though - in fact, when you’re forced to be selective and pick out only the best and most beautiful details for your post, you have to think creatively!
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The most popular accounts maintain a consistent look and feel in their imagery, which can mean visual consistency or in the tone they strike. Popular accounts tend to use just one filter, or post images that contain a consistent color palette. While you don’t want to be monotonous, an easy way to create cohesion is to use a consistent filter or post images that share a common color palette. Think about your grid of nine and try posting images that share some of the same colors or elements to strike a powerful mood and aesthetic.
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Spark Post takes the guesswork out of picking colors thanks to its intuitive palette tool. The app automatically extracts shades from your background photo to create a custom, complementary palette as shown in the template above. When choosing your font colors, cycle through the suggested palettes to easily find a combination you like.
When it comes to picking your brand colors, a simple way of starting to think about it is to pick two main complementary colors and one pop or call-to-action color. You can use Spark Post and some of your favorite photos to begin your brand color exploration.
Learn more: What Every Brand Should Know About Color
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With so much content on Instagram competing for attention, animating your posts is an easy and effective way to catch the eye of your audience. Shooting and editing a video can require some planning, but creating an animated text post is extremely quick and easy: no speaking in front of a camera required! In Spark Post for iOS, use the animation option to add simple movements like fade, zoom, pan, and slide to your design. Save it as a video to your camera roll and upload to Instagram natively.
Another easy way to create video in minutes is to combine still images in Adobe Spark Video and turn your photo album into moving stories. In the example above, a a photographer and PR manager teases a photo shoot with a slideshow video. As you can see, the applied animations create a flow between the frames and make a slideshow that looks beautiful and professional with very little effort. Simply add images to slides, pick a theme, and music and Spark Video does the rest for you.
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Whether your goal is to generate mentions, grow your follower base or increase the amount of UGC associated with your brand, an Instagram contest is a great way to engage your target audience. Who doesn’t want to win a prize just by posting a photo or using a hashtag?
Influencer marketing on Instagram has become huge in recent years, and social media personalities are increasingly overtaking traditional celebrities to the top of ‘most influential’ lists. An endorsement from an Instagram influencer who is aligned with your brand values can increase consumer trust and lend your voice authority. It can also create a buzz around your brand and have a direct impact on the success of your business.
Obviously, getting the most famous influencers to collaborate directly is no easy feat. One way to create a connection between your brand and the influencers you admire is to pay homage to them in the form of a quote. Sharing a relevant sound-bite from a respected influencer in your field will help you to cultivate your brand image, position your business, and show your target audience what you’re about. If you’re doing it right, your followers will most likely already be following the influencers you quote – or at the very least, they’ll share the same values and ideas you’re promoting.
Use the quote template above to easily create inspirational quotes for your feed in minutes! Or, looking for tips on how to best work with influencers? We've got a guide for you.
Ready to give picture quotes a try? Check out HubSpot’s helpful guide to creating the perfect picture quotes for Instagram.
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Having a guest takeover your Instagram, whether they’re creating Instagram posts or sharing live Stories, is a smart move for many reasons. By introducing a fresh face and a fresh take on your content, you can reach a new audience, boost your brand awareness, and inspire your community.
There are different types of guests you could invite for a takeover, depending on your goals. Do you want to collaborate with an influencer or expert to promote a product? Or do you want to give your followers a behind-the-scenes look at your company culture? If it’s the former, seek out influencers in your industry who are well aligned with your brand and have a decent sized following. If you’re aiming for the latter, hand over your Instagram account to a colleague, who can share some insight into who they are and what it is that they love about working for the company.
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Unlike posts to your Instagram page, Instagram Stories last for 24 hours and users see them by clicking on the avatars at the top of their feed. Instagram Stories offer a fleeting sneak-peek ‘backstage’: for example, into the company culture and the people who are part of it, or the work and care that goes into your product.
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Instagram Live permits you to share real time videos with your followers on Instagram, via Instagram Stories. Whereas Stories are saved for 24 hours and can be rewatched, once you’ve finished broadcasting a live video, it disappears forever. The ephemerality of live video allows you to share spontaneous, unedited moments with your audience and showcase your personality – so just go with the flow and have fun with it!
If it sounds simple, it’s because it is! The most simple movements or actions are the ones which work the best with Boomerang, and are actually the most successful.
