How to Organise Your Insta Feed
For us bloggers, Instagram is more than just a photo platform to share pics of your dog or your dinner (although I deffo appreciate a good pasta pic on the feed). It’s a creative space, a way to connect with brands, and even a full time job. When starting out as a blogger, you’re never quite prepared for how much time you actually have to dedicate to Instagram in order to get any sort of growth, from liking and commenting, to sharing, messaging and regularly posting, it’s a lot to get used to. Your blog needs to be nurtured, I tend to think of it like a demanding social media baby. And believe me, it can be demanding at times.
Throughout my time on Instagram as a blogger, one of the things that I have found the most difficult to do is to create an aesthetic, cohesive feed. I have always admired and been inspired by the gorgeously colour co-ordinated posts of bigger bloggers, and it definitely seems to be a good way of winning the hearts of followers. But boy, it certainly isn’t easy. It didn’t take me long to realise that it is, in fact, super difficult to colour code your entire life. And if I’m honest, that’s not something that I want to do. I want to be able to express myself with my fashion, without having to stick to a one-colour-fits-all palette. But how are you meant to do that, without your feed becoming one big mess? Well, it seems that nearly two years on, I am still trying to figure that one out. But I feel like I can confidently say I’ve improved over time (albeit slowly).
There are many tips and tricks that I have picked up over time as a blogger trying to create the best feed that I can. Without a doubt, it is near impossible to match the feeds of more successful bloggers when you don’t live somewhere like London, New York or LA, it rains 85% of the time, and you don’t have the means to buy new outfits every week. So, us smaller bloggers improvise, and there are things you can do to make your feed as cohesive and aesthetic as possible. So I thought I would share a few of my own tips on here for anyone struggling on the gram!
PLAN AHEAD
One of the things about blogging that I never realised until I started, is just how important planning is. I used to think I could just take a pic one day and upload it and that would be it, plan as you go. Oh how wrong I was…
Not only is planning important to make sure posts are scheduled on time and you always have consistent content, but it can really help to make your feed look better. I use an app called Preview at the moment where I can insert and rearrange photos in the Insta grid form to see how my feed will look. This is SO helpful to see what sorts of things will go well together and is a really good first step to getting a more coherent feed. Out of all of these tips I reckon this one is the most important!
USE THE SAME FILTER
One quick and easy way to make sure your photos are consistent is to use the same filter for all of them. I tend to turn my filter right down anyway, but having that little touch of it on all photos helps to keep them looking somewhat uniform. I also adjust and edit my photos in similar ways each time for the same reason!
MATCH COLOURS TOGETHER
Another really good way of getting a consistent feed, is to try and match colours together. If I know I have a blue look coming up, then I will try to incorporate some blue elements into a few surrounding photos so that it doesn’t look so out of place. This can be difficult, especially if you don’t have the outfits to do this, but it is definitely achievable if you match different outfits together.
I tend to find that the overall colour scheme of my feed changes with the seasons, which is pretty much unavoidable when you live with English weather, so my schemes sort of come in waves, also because I’m still trying to figure out my overall aesthetic. If you don’t have full outfits, even just small accessories can really help to achieve this!
OPT FOR PLAIN BACKGROUNDS
This is something that I find SO DIFFICULT. Living in Birmingham, it is unbelievably hard to find a plain-ish background that doesn’t have some sort of roadworks, sign, dustbin, or 10 million people walking through it. Finding a location can actually be the hardest and most frustrating part about my shoots. But enough about me.
If you can, try to find a background of a lightish colour, that doesn’t have too much going on in it. Obviously, this is all down to personal preference, but if you’re looking for uniformity, then this is definitely something that helps. It makes it easier to match colours because you’re working on a blank canvas, and overall it makes your feed much cleaner. Often, places that you never thought would work are really good. For example, you might be outside a really grubby building, BUT if it has one clear patch of wall, then the results could turn out just as good as they would anywhere else! It’s all about having a keen eye.
FILLER PHOTOS
I don’t tend to do this, but this is a really popular technique for bloggers. In between styling posts, they use ‘filler photos’ aka, a photo of something of a similar colour but that isn’t an outfit, to create an aesthetic feed. I try to do this with photos of accessories or beauty products, but I don’t tend to take photos from somewhere like Pinterest to fill up my feed.
I do however, agree that breaking up your feed with aesthetic photos of accessories such as bags, shoes or sunglasses, makes for a much better overall look. If this is something you can do, it can really help to pull everything together!
GOOD LIGHTING
This tip isn’t exclusive to those wanting to create a cohesive feed, but using good lighting for your photos is always a great idea. This, again, can be difficult in the UK because the weather is so unreliable, especially in winter. That’s why it’s important to keep your eye on the weather and plan ahead for your shoots so you can get the best lighting possible.
The lighter your photos are, the cleaner your feed looks as a whole, so it’s a very important part of the process!
So those are some of my top tips for creating a cohesive feed. It is one of those constant struggles that bloggers face, and it can be really difficult to even find the aesthetic you want. Overall, most followers say they don’t care about the overall look as much as the individual posts, and I definitely don’t think the actual photos should be compromised just to fit to a theme. However, I think these tips can help you fall somewhere in the middle like me!
I also asked other bloggers on my Instagram stories for some tips about creating an aesthetic feed, here were some of their tips:
@keavygales: ‘I use the app Planoly to see how everything looks before uploading to my Insta feed’
@biancabatchford: ‘Use organising apps like Colour Story- u can see what it looks like on ur feed before u post’
@thelifeofmolly99: ‘same filter used throughout, use unum to plan, break up the feed with variety of posts’
@hannahchambers_: ‘Try to stick to either cool or warm tones and then edit the tones on your pictures. Stick to one colour palette and try to shoot in front of backgrounds those colours. Use a planner app like VSCO or The Grid to see what your feed will look like’
@riya.amin98: ‘Really think about/plan what sort of content you want to post – use Pinterest for inspo. Use content planning apps to see how your content looks before you actually post’
@httpstella: ‘Unum is a really great way to visualise and plan out your feed and theme!’
@foreverfi_: ‘Choose colours that match in every photo and your feed should then follow the same sort of colour scheme x’
@trulyaria: ‘I use a preset in Lightroom to adjust all of my photos about the same and then I fine tune with Face Tune. I also use the same two / three filters in VSCO to maintain a cohesive theme’
@sameoldlaurie: ‘stick to a neutral colour theme that you can introduce pops of colours to’
@stylesofsophie: ‘Keep to the same tones!’
@theclaudabroad: ‘I always stick to having something white in my pics’
