How to Build a Cohesive Instagram Feed

Three Tips to Get You From Crazy to Cohesive

Hey guys! I’m so happy to be back here on the blog!  In the Hello Storyteller Community, I often see questions come up on how to build a cohesive Instagram feed so today, I thought I would share with you three tips that helped me to get from a crazy, all over the place feed to one that I’m really happy with and I find aesthetically pleasing.

First things first, if you want to have a cohesive feed, you should have cohesive images.  Does that mean that all of your images should look the same? No. But all the images you POST should have similar tones, colours, or use of light etc.  You really can’t put together a cohesive feed if your images are in every single style.  If you have an image you absolutely love but it just doesn’t go, share it in your stories!  I find that my images are similarly toned through the seasons so I gradually transition my feed in colour tones seasonally.

Want to Learn More About Color, Tones and Mood? Check Out Our Course, Mastering Mood!

 

Using Light to Build a Cohesive Instagram Feed

I take images with window light, Off Camera Flash, and natural sunlight outside.  But, through all those mediums, I am always aiming for directional light or backlight and use low light a lot.  Having a consistent approach to how I light my images gives them all a similar feel.  Along those same lines, I love a dark background so I often use dark coloured walls in my home, our barn, an old red shed, or a line of trees as a backdrop.  I try to use comparable colours in my images too.  I love red, mustard, forest green, and browns so I often dress my subjects in these colours.  It helps that my subjects that show up on my Instagram feed are my kids so I have total creative control.  This is a little bit trickier if you are featuring client photos, but it is still possible if you build up a clear enough brand that people with certain styles seek you out as their photographer.  

Want to Learn More about Light? Check Out, Natural Light for Storytellers!

 

Using Colour to Build a Cohesive Instagram Feed

Secondly, I find that if I spend a month or so incorporating a specific colour into my work that really helps boost my Instagram cohesiveness.  In February, I knew I would be incorporating lots of hearts and Valentine’s Day elements into my work so it was a good month to add lots of reds into my work.  A red sweater, coat, wagon, heart, cookie or mittens throughout my images really helped to tie everything together. 

In March, I started to incorporate more green into my work and feed and as spring appeared, more and more greens appeared.  And while we’re talking about green, having seven different tones of green in your feed is disruptive!  I personally like deep, rich greens, so when I edit outdoor images that are heavy with greens, I always move the Green Hue in the HSL panel towards the blue and away from the yellow in Lightroom.  However you chose to edit your greens, try and make it consistent throughout the images you post. 

And finally, have some fun!  I live in… pretty much the north pole so winter is like 7 months here.  And it’s snowy for most of them.  That’s a lot of snowy pictures.  I found my outdoor work full of white (thank you snow) while my indoor work was still very lowlight.  This gave me a fun idea for my feed to do a checkerboard pattern with my images by alternating between posting indoor and outdoor images. 

Then, we had a couple of weeks where it was too cold to go outside (really, it was -40) so I decided to use some indoor backlit images in place of snowy ones, and it flowed perfectly.  You could do a colour pattern or alternate between a colour image and a black and white one.  You could post in threes (i.e. three images with green, then three with browns, etc).  It takes a little bit of planning and forethought but it makes a big difference on your Instagram feed.

Want More Inspiration from Sarah? Follow her on Instagram!