5 Tips for a Cohesive Instagram Feed
These are my 5 biggest pieces of advice for anyone looking to establish a more cohesive and aesthetically pleasing Instagram feed! Whether you’re looking to curate a feed that’s easy on the eyes for the personal fun of it, or for the purpose of conveying a stronger brand presence on social media, I hope these tips will be helpful to you in the process!
1. Choose Your Color Palette
When choosing your color palette, first assess the kind of mood that you’d like your IG feed to have overall. Do you want it to feel warm and bright, dark and moody, colorful and energetic, minimalist and soft, etc.?
From there, select a color palette of between 3 or 6 colors to support your vision for vibe of your feed.
Example: Because I tend to shoot a lot of warm and bright subjects, my color palette is mainly orange, yellow, cream and pink, with occasional pops of blue or green.
Once you establish your color palette, you’ll have more focus when planning and creating your content!
2. Define Key Categories for Your Content
By selecting 3-5 categories (or themes) that you want your feed to be focused around, you can focus your content around things that make the most sense for your brand (personal or business). Dedication to your key categories helps in creating more visual consistency throughout your feed, and establishing clear communication to your following on what you’re all about.
Example: Because I’m a designer and artist who loves traveling and fashion, I rarely post anything to my feed that doesn’t have to do with design, art, travel, and fashion!
This means that I wouldn’t ever share images of pets, food, or beauty products (to name a few different themes), because those things don’t line up with what my brand is all about!
Keep in Mind:
Your themes can always pivot as your interests or brand changes (nothing is set in stone)
If some doesn’t match with your feed, but you still want to share it, you can always throw it up in your Stories. :)
3. Focus on Your Top 9 Squares
A helpful way to achieve balance and unity in your IG feed is to focus primarily on how your top 9 squares on your feed are working together. As long as these 9 squares feel balanced at all times, you can rotate in different themes and colors without ever throwing your grid into chaos.
4. Alternate Your Subjects and Your Colors
I find that a balanced top nine can easily be achieved by making sure to alternate the subject matter of my photos/videos and their general color palette as I post.
Example: I wouldn’t typically post a flatlay back to back. Instead, I would break them up by posting an image of a cafe or my studio in between.
Example: I wouldn’t likely ever share a predominately pink photo back to back, I would break them up but sharing a cream or orange photo in between.
Here are a couple examples from my feed, featuring a breakdown of nine images with alternating colors and themes:
5. Batch Your Content Schedule
As you gather your content based on your color palette and themes, I highly recommend using an app like Plann, Snug, Planoly, etc. (there are so many out there) to help you in the process of planning out your grid in advance! Not only does this save you time in the long run - from having to spend hours every day figuring out what to post - but it also makes visualizing the creative direction of your next nine squares easier.
***BONUS***
Use the same one or two presets regularly to create even more consistency and unity among the photos that you post! I edit all my photos with our Chez Núñez Presets for Lightroom Desktop or Mobile. My favorites to alternate between right now are 05 Flora, 08 Bookshop, and 10 Barcelona! :)
Thanks for reading! I hope these tips can help you to establish a more cohesive and aesthetically pleasing Instagram feed!
- Anna
Interested in learning anything else from me?! Let me know in the comments how I can serve you and your creative process!
