Every organization wants to produce relevant content that engages audiences. As a leader in social media engagement, Instagram comes with its own set of best-practices and guidelines. Creating a cohesive Instagram feed is the latest of these tips and tricks.

When it comes to developing a compelling social media presence, images are key.  Audiences respond more positively to brands with aesthetically pleasing social media content, and  posts that include images can produce up to 650 percent higher engagement than text-only posts.

With over 500 million users as of June 2016, Instagram controls  the social media space, and as an image-focused platform, Instagram requires a level of artistic direction and vision.

The latest Instagram trend is creating a cohesive feed. This trend focuses on utilizing a few key colors and incorporating those design trends across an entire feed. Interested in incorporating this concept into your social media content? Here are our tips:

Highlight Your Brand Color Palette:

The first key to successfully creating a cohesive Instagram feed is choosing a color palette. Think strategically about your brand and logo. Are there are any colors that are frequently featured on your website, in your content or related to your product? Utilize those to reinforce your brand through images.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you must use every one of these colors in every photo, but it’s wise to create a common thread throughout posts. For example, in the sample feed above, the account chose to utilize neutrals such as brown, white and black. However, they alternate the degree to which these colors are featured, creating a feed that’s interesting to look at.

Use a photo-editing application like VSCO cam:

There are plenty of photo-editing applications that can help you create a cohesive Instagram feed, the most popular of which is VSCO cam. Users love VSCO because it produces professional-quality photos while being user-friendly.

VSCO allows users to download countless presets that elevate the quality of your photography: from exposure, to tint, to shadows and more. While many of these presets can be downloaded for free, more advanced presets come at a small price.

Bloggers love sharing their personal tips and tricks for best-utilizing VSCO cam, so once you’ve downloaded the app, feel free to explore the multitude of filter options out there!

 

Plan ahead:

Planning ahead is the secret to creating a cohesive Instagram feed. Without a clear social media branding strategy, achieving that cohesive look will be difficult. While this task may initially seem like a burden for your team, planning ahead with social media management tools allows your team to easily tackle routine tasks while focusing on more important endeavors.

Besides the obvious benefits of planning your social media content in advance, there are countless apps that make planning ahead easy-as-pie. To achieve that cohesive Instagram feed, UNUM will be your best friend.

UNUM allows Instagram users to visually map-out their content in advance. It’s user-friendly and allows users to rearrange content in a pressure-free way (UNUM won’t post content until you approve it).

So go ahead! Plan ahead, take an excess of social media photos, and have a blast rearranging those photos to achieve your perfect Instagram feed aesthetic.

Re-evaluate:

The best part about Instagram feeds? They rotate constantly. If you’re posting at least once a day (which you should be, for the record) then your featured photographs will rotate almost weekly.

What’s the point? Reevaluate your Instagram aesthetic as frequently as you would any other social media content. If something isn’t working or you just want to mix-up the aesthetic, feel free to change your VSCO filter settings! As long as you do your research, plan ahead and stick to your branding guidelines, users will appreciate the cohesive aesthetic you achieve.

Looking for great examples of cohesive Instagram aesthetic? Check out these accounts:

• Liza Koshy: One of Youtube’s biggest stars, Liza Koshy is the queen of transitioning flawlessly from one Instagram aesthetic to the next… and keeping it all cohesive!
• Taylor Swift: She’s the original “Queen Bee” of the Instagram aesthetic game
• Socality: Flawless photography, countless subject-matters, and seamless aesthetic.
• Target: Target easily transitions through seasonal promotions via Instagram while maintaining a cohesive pastel palette.