In today's world, Instagram is a must! Whether you're looking for inspiration or connecting with liked-minded creatives, Instagram offers a variety of ways to grow your audience and highlight your work. Though social media marketing may come naturally to some, for many it's intimidating and hard to grasp. But not to worry - that's where we come in!
In our past series, 'A Creative's Guide to Instagram,' we broke down the best practices photographers and creatives can use to market themselves on the platform. This article is an overview of all previous installments; it is our ultimate guide for creatives to follow! We hope you find it useful, and the world of social media marketing more accessible.
Establishing your Visual Identity
Firstly, we need to cover the basics. This includes setting up a profile and building a visual identity. In other words, making a lasting first impression.
Username
For a business Instagram account, it's best to keep your username simple and informative. A common practice is to use your name alongside a keyword that links your work to your person. This combination makes for a username that can be easily remembered and searched. While more creative usernames are not discouraged, it is best to remember that you want to give prospective clients the simplest way to find you.
Profile Picture
The first visual prospective clients will see once on your profile is your profile picture. Often times it becomes the sole image that they associate with your and/or your work. Use an image or logo that best represents your brand as a creative. As with your username, it's a good idea to use the same profile picture across other social media platforms you may use. With consistency comes familiarity and recognition helpful in building an engaged audience.
Bio
Your bio is where your most important information should be displayed. Think of it as a snapshot of your professional life. Here you can highlight contact information, professional achievements, where you are based, and links to redirect users to any other platforms you may have. This could be a website containing your portfolio, or other social media platforms. And most importantly, whether you use your name in your username or not, your bio is the perfect place to state your name.
Maintain an Aesthetic
For a feed that highlights your unique artistic voice, it is best to maintain a certain aesthetic. It should align with your artistic identity and give users a sense of your interests and abilities as a creative. Your feed should be cohesive but not monotonous. Let your work speak for itself!
Defining your Content
With a solid profile, we can shift our focus to the content you should post. It's understandable that creatives might approach Instagram the same way they approach their craft. That is to say, in a way that suits their needs for total creative expression. While personal, creative expression is important, it's useful to keep in mind some key factors to get the most out of Instagram.
It's always a good idea to reflect on your content rather than post blindly. One simple way to do this is by asking yourself questions that put you in your audience's shoes.
Below are some examples:
- Is there a clear purpose for posting this content?
- Does this content add value to people’s lives?
- Can my audience draw inspiration from my work and/or the stories behind it?
- Does this content demonstrate credibility?
- In their shoes, would I revisit my profile?
Additionally, there are some fundamental principles to remember when defining the type of content that will resonate with your audience. They include:
Understand your Audience: This could be your existing audience, or the audience you wish to attract. Place yourself in their shoes to better understand their needs, desires, and interests.
Tell a Story: Images resonate with audiences more when they are weaved together by an overarching story. In this case, captions can be very useful in adding further context to the story itself, and/or the story of how the images came to be.
Personal & Professional: While a business account will primarily focus on your work as a creative, it is wise to include glimpses of your life outside of work. This could be pictures of your personal life, or a personal creative project you're working on.
This brings some personality to your feed that many art buyers and creative directors find refreshing. In fact, 70% of people occupying these positions say they enjoy seeing personal content on a creative's feed. It also allows your audience to connect with the person behind the screen.
Authenticity + Consistency: People gravitate towards authenticity. Being authentic is sometimes easier said than done, but it pays off in attracting an audience that likes your work and the person behind it. This quality, coupled with consistency, can turn your Instagram feed into the perfect compliment to your portfolio.
Intentional, never Random: It goes without saying that a thoughtful effort is more impactful than an arbitrary one. While it's a good idea to leave room for spontaneity, making thoughtful decisions about your content is more likely to yield better audience engagement.
This is also true of captions and hashtags. Captions should be easy to read and relate well to its corresponding images. Hashtags should be more specific than generic and easily searchable.
Below are some suggestions for the types of content we find most successful in piquing audience interest, leading to further engagement. Our suggestions include:
Images from your Portfolio: Posting images from your portfolio is a no brainer. It’s the best and most direct way to introduce your audience to your work. Showing your finished work demonstrates your unique creative vision, talent and ability, and past experience.
Your Creative Process: You can use a series of images to document the process of one specific campaign or project. Start from the beginning and show the evolution of your work. Use the corresponding caption to expand on the experience; this can be lessons learned and/or highlights.
Behind the scenes: You can use your feed or Instagram Highlights to share behind the scenes footage of your work. This can range from castings to photoshoots and everything in between.
Pivotal career moments: Share stories of your career milestones. You can use these achievements to reflect on your journey as a creative. Some reflections worth sharing could be: the process of finding your create style; lessons learned from mentors; past failures; and future projects.
Diversifying your Profile
With an understanding of the different types of content to post, we can review the various posting methods Instagram offers. We break down their purposes, and how they work together to create a standout profile all creatives need.
Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories are among the platform’s most well known features. In fact, approximately 200 million people view Instagram Stories daily. They disappear 24 hours after upload, and can be viewed by all Instagram users depending on your account privacy settings.
Instagram Stories can accommodate both images and videos; it also allows for unlimited personalization. You can overlay your content with music, text, outbound links, and tags. Whenever sharing content about your work, we recommend tagging collaborators and clients so they can repost to their audience.
Instagram Highlights
Instagram has a feature that allows you to keep Stories beyond 24 hours - these are called Highlights. A Highlight is a collection of saved stories that remains on your profile, pinned above your feed. We recommend creating multiple Highlights and organizing them efficiently. The feature offers decent flexibility as you can delete specific stories, or the whole collection if necessary.
We find that Highlights organized by campaigns, or specific facets of your work/career, work best for creative profiles. Popular Highlight categories range from: awards and recognition; on-set footage; industry events; and favourite campaigns.
Instagram Reels
Following the rise of short-form video content, Instagram introduced Reels. Reels are videos ranging from a few seconds to 90 seconds in length. They can be edited to include special effects and audio. Reels can appear in your feed, but are primarily featured in their own tab in the navigation bar. This format is good for posting video-based work from your portfolio.
Popular examples include sizzle reels or commercial spots. We recommend you edit your videos to the proper Instagram Reel dimensions and personalize them to strengthen your visual identity. You can also use relevant keywords and hashtags to increase discoverability.
Instagram Live
The only feature on the platform that allows you to interact with your audience in real time is Instagram Live. Live content is a favourite among Instagram users for its authentic and unscripted feel. Once you go live, you can actively interact with your joined audience, responding to viewer comments as they are posted.
Many use Instagram Live to capture a snapshot of their daily life, or have conversations with other Instagram users. Live conversations are an easy way for both parties to leverage the other’s reach. As a creative, you can go live with collaborators, mentors, or peers. This is a great space to offer your audience insight into “the real you.”
Social Media Management Services
Consistency is essential for creatives when marketing their work across social media platforms. As such, it can be helpful to use social media management services. Below are some popular options:
SocialPilot: this service has a wide array of offerings that range from social media scheduling, AI content generation, & performance analytics. It can accommodate the most widely used platforms and more, all from a single dashboard. This is a paid monthly service with a 14-day free trial.
ContentStudio: this service reduces the risk of human error with a content calendar in which users can view and edit posts easily. Additionally, its social media scheduling and content automation helps users to post consistently and capitalize on collected data to improve engagement. This is a paid service with a free trial.
Top Tips for Creatives
To conclude "A Creative's Guide to Instagram: A Quintessential Breakdown," we leave you with key tips creatives should remember when marketing themselves on Instagram. While everyone has different uses or expectations for Instagram, the below tips can help steer all creatives in a direction that makes sense for them, their audience, and their work. These tips are not rules, but rather guidelines anyone can use to get the most out of the platform.
Our tips for creatives marketing themselves on Instagram include:
Tip #1: Amplify your Content
There are 2 ways to get your content seen by Instagram users outside of your existing audience. They include: placing ads and boosting posts. Instagram ads takes your content to people who wouldn’t otherwise see it. Ads can appear in feeds, stories, and reels. You can customize them and target specific audiences according to your needs.
Boosting posts on the other hand, is a great tool for creatives with similar yet simpler needs. While your content will still reach more people, it offers a more limited reach and less customization relative to Instagram ads.
Tip #2: Post at Optimal Times
Creatives should keep in mind that posting on Instagram should be more strategic than random. Data analysis shows that Instagram users are most active on the platform at midday and during mid-week. This makes Wednesday at 11am the most ideal time to post and engage your followers. However, it’s always best to measure audience activity, and post when it's most active.
Tip #3: Schedule your Posts
Scheduling posts in advance comes in handy if you are trying to reach audiences in different time zones, or post multiple times a week. This is a great way to stay organized, not only for Instagram, but across all your social media platforms.
Tip #4: Make Content Easily Digestible
Content that quickly captures users’ attention tends to perform better on Instagram. Creatives should prioritize brevity, as the attention span of Instagram users is dwindling. This doesn’t mean longer form content should be abandoned, but rather moved to platforms like Twitter & Facebook where they will likely perform better.
Tip #5: Watch Social Media Trends
Seek out trends on social media and keep them top of mind. You can integrate trending materials (audio or visual) into your posts for increased visibility and engagement. With that said, always be sure whatever you post aligns with your overall values and identity.
Tip #6: Don’t Over-Curate your Feed
Establish a visual identity and maintain your chosen aesthetic. However, leaving space for spontaneity is crucial. This breath of fresh air helps creatives build rapport with their audience, and allows some personality to shine through.
Tip #7: Measure Engagement
It's imperative that creatives measure their success on Instagram. Understanding the data can help creatives expand their reach, and strengthen their relationships with their audience. All business accounts have an ‘Insights’ tab on the top of every profile. In this tab, there is a breakdown of the past 7 days, with respect to accounts reached, content interactions, and total followers. This is a good introduction for creatives to understand their reach on the platform.
Tip #8: Pin Posts
The top 3 posts on your Instagram grid are prime real estate. Creatives can pin regular posts or reels to make them the first thing people see when visiting their profiles. It’s a good idea to pin posts that communicate something important to your audience. With the option to unpin, creatives can use that space to promote whatever work is pressing.
Thank you for joining us for our series 'A Creative's Guide to Instagram!' We hope our guide helps creatives feel less intimidated by Instagram marketing, and more empowered to show off their work. Stay tuned with Production Paradise - there's lots more to come!
