Feeling like your Instagram feed is in a creative rut? Don’t worry, we’re here to provide you with 8 key tips on how to have a good Instagram feed and take your grid to the next level!
So what is an Instagram grid, anyway? When you’re viewing an Instagram profile on your smartphone, you’ll see nine photos at once. These nine photos make up “the grid”.
On some of your favorite accounts, you may even notice subtle color nuances and styles that make the content POP 💥!
These harmonious grid effects are super effective in getting people to stop scrolling, like their images and even comment!
When you’re thoughtfully trying to make your Instagram look better, by applying a theme or creating a cohesive look, you can create a style all your own.
Ready to learn how to make your Instagram feed look good and rock the grid? Let’s dive in!
How to Have a Good Instagram Feed in 8 Simple Steps
There are a few tips and tricks that beautifying your Instagram feed really simple through visually planning your Instagram posts.
Let’s unpack our tips on how to make your Instagram pretty and follow-worthy below!
1. Think like an editor
You’ll want to start thinking about your Instagram feed as a whole entity and not as individual posts.
This is the first small mental change to make to your Instagram posting process in order to implement a feed plan and create a cohesive look.
So what do we mean by think like an editor? Chiefly, you’ll want to take these things into consideration when creating a nice feed on Instagram:
- The types of photos or videos you’ll post
- The exact placement of photos in relation to each other
- Making sure each post fits the style that you create for your visual theme (more on this later!)
- Plan your Instagram content in advance for posting (spur-of-the-moment photos might be hard to fit into your styled Grid!)
- Process each photo through filters, apps and/ or presets the same way (more on this later!)
For an example of a themed Instagram grid, this is Stitch Fix’s Instagram account and top nine grid.
Stitch Fix uses lighter photos with lots of white space.
Their content usually consists of product features and styled videos!
Think of your Instagram feed as a whole, not individual posts, if you want to rock the grid.
On the other hand,Queenhorsfal rocks a super tight grid and she works in threes.
You can see from this top nine that she has one more post to add that will be blue.
Working in groups of threes, each with their own color story, is another great way to create beautiful content and make your Instagram look better.
Among our tips on how to improve your Instagram, this is one you should definitely apply!
2. Cover one topic
Popular Instagram accounts have a theme and keep it super tight. To make your Instagram look better, you’ll need to set parameters for your feed and stick to it.
For example, take @artsyaffirmations Instagram feed. Their theme is pop culture art, and their content is all about positive affirmations.
Although they use a suite of bright colors and funky graphics, their theme of positive messages and self-affirmation is present in every post.
If you’re wondering how to make your Instagram feed look good, kiss random spur-of-the-moment content goodbye.
Remember the mission and values behind your account, and make sure they’re present in every post!
3. Create a unified visual theme
Keeping a consistent visual theme is a crucial part of our list of tips on how to improve your Instagram feed.
Popular ways to unify your Instagram feed theme include focusing on color palettes and editing your photos in the same way!
You can create specific style guidelines to follow for each photo! Take @dananicoledesigns feed, for example!
Dana uses two main types of visual content to keep her feed looking unified: actual photos, and stylized graphics!
Let’s take a closer look! Psst… make a mental note to create similar style guidelines to ensure cohesiveness in your feed:
- Dana always edits her photos with the same rosy presets.
- She uses text graphics with the same blush background color and white accents.
- She also uses the same font across each graphic.
4. Design your aesthetic
For methods on how to make your Instagram more appealing, look straight to designing your own aesthetic.
Whether you’re a Photoshop or smartphone user, you need to develop the way you want to edit each photo or video.
This creates a cohesive feed no matter where you take your photos.
With Photoshop, you can use Photoshop actions to process each photo with one click.
If you’re not a Photoshop pro yet, you can find many free Photoshop actions out there to save and then tweak them to make the mood and style you’re trying to achieve.
Lightroom is another great way to process photos. You can find Lightroom presets to achieve the same goal as Photoshop actions.
There’s also a Lightroom app for your phone so you can process your photos on the go and still match your style!
VSCO is the most popular app for processing Instagram photos with fashion and lifestyle bloggers.
They have it down to a science and, wow, does it show in their amazing Instagram feeds.
If you’re hoping to make your Instagram look better, it doesn’t matter how you choose to take your photos or process them.
What matters is that you consistently use the same filters and settings for each photo to match the aesthetic that you choose!
5. Take high-quality photos
Our list of tips for how to make your Instagram feed better wouldn’t be complete without this deceptively easy fix: high- quality photos!
High-quality photos aren’t out of your reach, even if you don’t have a fancy DSLR. You just need a steady hand, some patience and an eye for composing your photos in unexpected ways!
Whether you’re taking professional-looking photos with your iPhone, or snapping lifestyle shots with your Android device… nearly every modern SmartPhone device can deliver jaw-dropping photos!
Here are some tips to keep in mind:
- Use the AE/AF lock feature to set your exposure before taking your picture
- Turn on Grid Lines to make your photo composition even better
- Find your best natural lighting – try shooting by a window, or outdoors in mid-morning or mid-evening!
For even more easy tips to become a Smartphone photography, pro, tune into our free webinar with stock photo master Kayla Marie Butler of The Ivory Mix!
6. Color-coordinate your Instagram feed
Wondering how to make your Instagram pretty? Try adding splashes of color to your visual planning approach!
Adopting an Instagram color theme isn’t as complicated as it sounds.
You can peruse Pinterest and some of your favorite feeds for color inspiration – or even make your own random palette with free apps like Coolors!
Here are some things to keep in mind when choosing colors that work for you:
- Decide how many colors you want to use. Some palettes contain six colors, while some popular Instagram accounts only use two or three!
- Keep your surroundings in mind. The type and location of photos you take most often will probably influence your color selection. For example, if you constantly take gorgeous seaside pics, you may not want to put neon colors or desert-dry hues into your palette.
- Use a filter that makes your Instagram feed colors pop. Perfecting your photos and bringing your color palette out in every photo can be as simple as one tap! Peruse presets for sale online, or look up filter recipes on Pinterest to save in your favorite editing app!
7. Post consistently to Instagram
If you’re racking your brain wondering how to make your Instagram feed better, the answer may be simpler than you think. It’s consistency!
Whether you opt to post once per day, or only want to commit to three posts a week max, it’s important that you show up and post!
Why?
When you commit to posting consistently, you’re teaching your followers what to expect from you.
With regular posting and interaction, your followers will grow to expect your content in their feed and even happily wait for your latest and greatest post!
Visually Plan your Instagram Feed with Tailwind
Here’s the key tip on how to make your Instagram better visually: Planning.
The best Instagram feeds are ones that have been carefully and thoughtfully curated and prepared.
By planning your feed, you’ll be able to see how your photos look next to each other and adjust where needed in order to achieve the cohesive look and feel of your dreams.
Once you batch process your photos, you can plan out your grid in Tailwind with the Auto-Scheduler tool to schedule them at the optimal times using our Smart Scheduling tool for Instagram! Just:
- Upload all your photos
- Draft your captions and select the best Hashtags using Hashtag Finder
- Drag, drop and re-arrange your posts in our 9-Grid Preview feature to perfect your grid!
Once you have them scheduled, when you use Auto Scheduler, those posts will go out at the best time for your Instagram audience.
Now there’s nothing left to do but go out there and create those ‘Gram-able moments. Anyone know a coffee shop that does latte art? ☕️#DoItForTheGram
Have any questions about how to use Tailwind for Instagram or how to make your feed pretty? Let’s hear them in the comments below!
Peg is the Director of Content Strategy and Social Media with Tailwind. An avid Pinner and Instagrammer, Peg co-wrote The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users with Guy Kawasaski.
Peg, this is terrific. It gives a concrete idea of what to actually do with a grid! Thanks, even though I’m not on Tailwind, I feel sure I can give this a solid shot!
Hello Ruthie,
Awesome! I’m so happy that you liked it. I’ve been working on doing my photos in rows of three and I think it looks much more coordinated and nice.
Good luck with it!
Peg
Well explained and usable info, just one doubt;
My community is full of colaborations (booktubers, book bloggers and Bookstagrammers) an there are, institutions, sponsors and events that from time to time whe have to repost their content, wich is not the same (aesthetically speaking) as ours.
And there are influencer and celebrity mentions and those occur organicly and some times (especially live events) one cannot “plan” these reposts.
In that case, what would you advise to bring the feed together as a “whole” instead of just singular posts
Sorry i hit “Send” before saying thank’s in advance! 😉
Hello! You could try working in a row of three for those times when you have sponsors or events. This way one post wouldn’t be glaringly different from all your other content.
Love this advice of working in 3’s or 9’s I am loving Tailwind and did not know about this feature until I read your post. Thanks for sharing.
Hello Catherine! I’m so happy that you love Tailwind – I do too! 🙂 I’m so happy that you learned something new from this article. Happy gramming!