Lessons from other people’s posts on instagram.

I spent some time looking through feeds on Instagram to summarise some lessons from other people. i.e. what I saw working, and what I saw that didn’t work.

• text needs to be readable against the picture
• an image on its own needs to be particularly strong and unusual
• quotes on a plain back ground can work well
• consistent branding is hard but if you can pull it off your profile looks great
• motivational quotes can work, but if that is all you kick out then you have so much competition
• interspersing a branded ‘quote’ or ‘image’ between other images can give your profile an arresting look

Images

• add a square to put the text on - the text becomes important, the image just a backdrop
• if hte image is important, adjust the opacity of the ‘square’ to allow the image to show through
• contrast back ground for text e.g. main text on white, call to action or name on black

Videos

• videos that show the ‘mostly finished frame’ as thumb and when you play you see the finishing touches
• vdieos need to have burned in subtitles if it is someone speaking

General Lessons

• on the web rather than mobile app, you don’t see any of your comment - so any call to action urls must be on the image
• link in profile should be to a generic summary page with most recent links either use a tool or create a specific page on your site formatted for instagram

Avoid

• having a private profile if you are a business, or having the dreaded “No posts yet” (post something!)
• photos of celebrities
• photos of people without any text or caption
  • tip - easy way to avoid this is make your ‘photo’ post a story, then add a caption and share as a post
• avoid stock photos on their own - stock photos are for background rather than an image post
• cropped text - redo the image instead so that it all fits on the page
• an empty profile. fill it up with posts - at the very least have 12 so it fills the page - otherwise it looks like you don’t care