Instagram Tips & Tricks From Some of The Best

So if you follow me on Instagram, you’d known by now, I’ve been having a lot of fun hanging out on the new Clubhouse App, lately. What is Clubhouse, you ask? You can read Vogue’s take on it, here.

Anyway, so last night I hosted a room on styling tips for Instagram with a couple of other creatives: Khryxette Abarra (Lifestyle Photographer, Melbourne) and Kerri Carucci (Fashion Stylist, Brisbane). Not long after the discussion began, we had a diverse range of people, all with large followings, come up on stage and share some awesome tips with the audience.

The conversation took many twists and turns and I’ve collated the best of what was discussed below for you! Hopefully you can learn from these tips that have come from some successful influencers and brands who have figured out what works and how to use the algorithm to their benefit.

Here’s what we learnt:

1. BECOME AN AUTHORITY

   Become an authority in what you’re selling, and your brand.

2. Know your purpose

   Why do you want a greater following? Who do you want to follow you? This will help you determine the ‘how’.

3. have A strategy and objectives clearly understood

   This one is self-explanatory! Know your WHY and stick to it.

4. Ask people to save your post

   Instagram is constantly changing and evolving, and while it’s important that your brand values stay consistent, the way you present yourself on there shouldn’t as you’ll need to adapt and shift as the platform favours certain features. One of those features currently, is ‘saves’ of your post. So remember to make your content something someone would want to come back to later, and there’s no harm in directly asking your audience to save your posts!

5. Inspire, educate or entertain

   A general rule-of-thumb for making interesting content for your viewers. This is known to cause a great spike in engagement and connection (check out the Reels or Explore section and to find inspiration on what others are creating in this way).

6. Authentically give

   Be generous with your viewers, share tips and tricks that are relatable to them. Are you a florist in the wedding industry? Give behind-the-scenes sneak peeks at a wedding setup, tag other vendors in your posts (this also then makes your content shareable by them and more likely to spread), make how-to instructional on simple posie creation, or document how much work in involved in a wedding setup etc. The possibilities are endless and it depends on your field or industry as to what is relatable, so be creative!

7. Behind the scenes

   Speaking of behind-the-scenes, your viewers love this stuff! It doesn’t have to be as curated and beautiful as the tiles on your feed. You would usually post these images on your Stories, or in a Carousel post on your feed, behind the prettiest picture, people want to see real-life and real people, so don’t be shy!

8. Ask questions

   Engage your audience with questions. Put them at the start of your caption. Using stickers like polls and quizzes, on Stories works really well for engagement too!

9. Show up on your page

   Show your face! People love to see the person behind the brand and very much relate to that. Once trust is built, it can become the very reason they choose to purchase your products. It was mentioned in the discussion on Clubhouse that we want to buy from people we have crushes on! You’re definitely going to trust that person who is relatable to you or who you aspire to be like, more so than a faceless brand. If this scares you, find a group of friends who are your cheer squad to encourage you and support you. Maybe don’t check how you went too many times the first time, just let it go and know we aren’t judging you as much as you probably feel and it’s scary even for the most confident of us the first time, and many times after that. (You’ll feel better about it after you do it a few times, I promise).

10. Know what you stand for

    It’s super important to know your values, and stick to them. Don’t change with trends or peer pressure. Know what makes your brand unique, be consistent in what you offer your viewers, and know your point of difference, and your why!

11. Drill down on your niche

    It was mentioned many times that knowing your niche and not being afraid to go deep into it, is a massive benefit on Instagram. People can sniff out fakes pretty easily, so own what makes you and your brand unique and authentically communicate that to your audience, they’ll love it!

12. be a teachers pet

    As previously mentioned, Instagram is constantly adding new functions and ways of sharing and connecting with others on their platform, find out what the latest thing is and jump on early! Instagram Guides seems to be all the rage at the moment - check it out!

13. carousels create engagement

    More time spent on a post flicking through a carousel post, creates a higher level of engagement - give it a try.

14. check your insights

    Make sure you keep track of what is working or not working for you, it’s so important to read that data and adapt appropriately. Don’t be afraid to take risks, and trial and error to find out what works.

15. build trust

    Remember to connect with your customers and be consistent, this will build the trust and relationship that encourages them engaging with your profile and brand.

16. stay away from overly curating your feed

    There’s no such thing as perfect and often this can be off-putting for a viewer. We don’t want clinical but relatable. There’s nothing wrong with a beautiful feed, but don't fall into the trap of focusing so heavily on that, that the spark is lost in the attention to detail.

17. the amazing shop analogy

    One contributor educated us with the most beautiful analogy for how to look at your Instagram feed. Imagine it’s a shop and you’re a store owner and you’ve spent all this time and energy setting up your store. Do you just sit in your store and wait the customers to come in and appreciate it? Or would you go out, network, chat to people and leave your business cards around town? The latter, I hope. And the same applies for Instagram, be active in engaging with your existing customers, and future customers, just like you would in a brick-and-mortar store. Collaborate with other brands! Have FUN!

18. use hashtags with under forty thousand uses

    This is such a simple way of getting your content seen easier, and was recommended highly by one of the speakers who has over fifty thousand followers on her page.

19. add value

    Your customers, supporters, and potentially even your friends and family are on your page because it adds value to their life. This can be translated into so many different expressions. But ask yourself, how am I adding value to someone’s life today?

If you’re on Clubhouse I’d love to connect with you there! My handle is @melbourneartist and thanks to all the incredible contributors from last night’s discussion. If you’ve implemented these tips and they’re working for you, I’d love to hear from you too and keep the conversation going! I’m all about community, connection, and collaboration.

Have a beautiful day.

Love, Ash x

How to create an engaging Instagram reel in three simple steps

STEP ONE - MAP OUT A ROUGH PLAN

There are many ways in which you can create fun, exciting and attractive content for your reel. But before you start creating, it’s important to think about how you want your reel to come across to the viewer. You can ask yourself “What feel do I want my reel to have?”. Do you want it to feel joyful, fun, adventurous, colourful, muted, dark or dreamy? You can then choose your filters and format accordingly. Try and stick to a maximum of two to three similar looking filters or feels within the one project or it will lack cohesion, continuity and flow.

Secondly, ask yourself, ‘what message do I want to send to the viewer?’ Will its purpose be to educate, or entertain, will it be just for fun, to market a product, tell a story, will it be just for beauty’s sake, or will it be funny? A purpose and direction will help you edit your content to fit the vibe you’re going for. If you’re a brand, make sure you consider that the feel, styling and content fits within the ethos and identity of your brand.

Considerations: Purpose, mood, message, and brand identity

STEP TWO - CREATE YOUR CONTENT

Where you record your app is up to you. I often use Instagram Stories to film things or a combination of a few different apps to create the content I’m after. Reels of course is great, but it’s important to remember to save along the way or else you can easily lose your work.

In order to keep the reel interesting and engaging, I record dynamic content that varies from section-to-section. What I mean by that is taking footage from altering angles, panning, speeding up or slowing down the recording, and using simple techniques such as stop motion or time-lapse to diversify the content. Often, but not always I record larger times than what I need and trim down in the editing stage. I do multiple takes of shots (excluding things like stop motion and time-lapse) and choose the most fitting one for my reel when it comes time to put it together.

Considerations: App choice, diverse, dynamic content

step three - putting your reel together

Now to the best part, putting it all together. I choose thirty second reels every time as I can always make it shorter. I like to remind myself during the process that more is not always better and to keep it succinct by only including footage that is interesting, beautiful, and relevant to the goals I set out in Step One. Quality over quantity, always.

The musical element is one of my favourite ways to add another dimension to my reels. It can evoke a sense of adventure, change the mood, be fun or silly. I love the process of searching for songs that enhance the reel I want to build and trial and error until one fits perfectly! I edit footage to coincide with the beat or flow of the song. The way the editing section is designed in the app, makes this very easy to achieve once you’ve practiced a little bit.

I like to keep my individual reel sections short and sweet - one to three seconds max. I do this in order to keep the flow of the reel moving and to tell the story in a fun and interesting way. I find matching well with the beat of the music easy when the reel frames change at this pace.

Considerations: quality over quantity, matching your visual story to the music, relevance, frame length (short and sweet)

And that‘s it really. I Can’t wait to see what you create with your reels. Feel free to tag me and I’ll be sure to give your reel a like and a comment!

Instagram: @ashwhite.co