9 Tips To Create A Cohesive Instagram Feed

Creating a cohesive Instagram feed is definitely a form of art. We have worked hard to develop our Instagram feed and we are incredibly proud of it. But it wasn’t created overnight. It takes dedication, planning and most importantly strategy. Creating a cohesive Instagram feed is actually one of our most requested client services and today we are giving you the secret tips we use to create this magic. 

Creating a cohesive Instagram feed is more than just pretty pictures, it’s built from a foundation of strategy and insights.

Before we dive into these tips on how you can create a consistent Instagram feed, take a moment to browse your favorite feeds. Who inspires you? Are their styles consistent? Do you gravitate towards a particular look? You’ll first need to understand what you like. This is your feed, you should love it. This is extremely important. Whenever you click on your gram profile, you should feel proud and inspired by your work. We know we do and that is our goal with each and every client we touch. Alright, now you are ready. Let’s dive into these nine secrets to building a cohesive and consistent Instagram feed.

Here are 9 tips to creating a cohesive Instagram feed:

1. Strong Strategy

We wholeheartedly believe that you cannot have a strong Instagram feed without a social media strategy in place. You need to understand the why behind your posting and who you are posting for in order to see success. You can post all the pretty pictures you want, but without a reason, those images will get lost amongst your audience. Pretty pictures might be what made them hit the follow button, but your captions and content is what gets them to stick around, engage and ultimately turn into paying customers and clients. 

2. Brand Style

Do you have a defined brand style? In other words, do you have a rulebook for your brand that identifies colors, typography, logo variations, patterns and more? If not, this is where you need to start. Whether you start by creating a moodboard or by hiring a branding service (we can help!) you will want this in place. Have you ever seen an Instagram feed that is constantly changing? The colors change, the fonts change and even their photo filters change. It can be hard to keep up and oftentimes you might find yourself hitting the unfollow button. Without a unique brand style in place you will begin to feel lost in all those Canva templates and start posting content you “like” versus content that is truly on brand.

3. All The Feels

Let’s dig into that brand style a little deeper. Your brand should evoke a feeling from your audience. Similarly, so should you Instagram feed. At first glance, do you want your feed to feel poppy, colorful, moody, natural or vintage? This feeling should reflect your brand. These feelings don’t need to be the exact same personality traits of your brand, but they should be synonymous. 

4. Color

You now have an identified brand style and you confidently understand and know your brand colors. You are one step closer to creating a cohesive Instagram feed. If you use Canva, put these colors into your brand kit and use them as you build and find new templates. If your brand guidelines only include a couple colors and you want to offer more variety, it is okay to introduce 1 to 2 new colors into social media. However, choose that color and stick to it and make sure it works well with your core colors. Another option, rather than adding an entirely new color, is to explore transparencies within your brand colors. These transparencies will almost always work well within your feed and offer a little more variety for your viewers. 

5. Font Treatments

Let’s talk about fonts. This topic can be tricky not to mention entering a legal area. We are definitely not lawyers, but please make sure you have the legal rights to the fonts you are using, especially if you are uploading these files directly to your website, Canva or any other service you are using. Just a quick little PSA before we move on. ? When using fonts in your social templates, our rule is to stick to 2-3 type treatments. This will create consistency throughout your posts. If you use anymore than three your Instagram feed will begin to feel cluttered. Setting these typography rules is an important part of identifying your brand style in tip number two.

6. Fill Your Content

Now we get to the fun part. The beautiful content that makes up your Instagram feed. First, you need to source this content. We recommend sourcing content from four key buckets:

• Brand Photography: those beautiful photos of your pretty face from styled brand photoshoots.
• Stock Photography: leveraging free sites like Pexels and Unsplash or paid membership services like Social Squares.
• Regrams: don’t forget about supporting your fellow content creators. If you regram anyones content always, always tag them in the photo and the caption. We also recommend asking for permission through their DM’s first. 
• Graphics: finally source or create templated graphics leveraging your brand style guide. If you know us, you know we love to use Canva for this step!

The most important part about sourcing and compiling all of this content is to make sure the various images fit your brand style. Save all these images and file them in a folder on your computer so you can view them together and delete the ones that feel out of place. We like to do this in Tailwind by dropping all the images into our grid. More on this in tip number eight!

7. Content Variety

As you gather all your content, you’ll want to make sure you are alternating it. Posting five images in a row of your face and then five images in a row of beautiful home office spaces isn’t going to create a very cohesive Instagram feed. Of those four buckets we mentioned above, make sure you have a handful of images for each. If one bucket feels light for that month, start sourcing some more. You’ll be thankful you did as we jump into tip number eight.

8. Layout Your Grid

It’s time to layout your Instagram Grid! Guessing what you should post each day is never the answer. You absolutely cannot create a cohesive Instagram feed without laying it out first and planning ahead. Start by uploading all the content you sourced to a scheduling system like Tailwind, Planoly or Later. As you layout your content, consider these rules:

• Perfect isn’t always best. You don’t need to follow a hard and fast rule of alternating content. For example, a rule like “every other post will be a brand photo followed by a graphic.” It’s okay to stray, in fact, it will feel more natural not to set those hard rules. 
• Consider negative space. Look at each image and consider the area of space around or near the focus subject of the photo. You can create depth with your Instagram feed by noticing these spaces and alternating them as you post. 
• Consider angles. This means to not only consider the straight on angles, but also the crop of the photos. Is the photo capturing details or the bigger picture? Sometimes the answer isn’t to find a completely new image, but rather think about how it could be cropped to better fit the feed.

9. Break The Rules

Last, but definitely not least, have fun! The great thing about your Instagram feed is that it can be a mini extension of your brand beyond just your website. This is also a platform where you are allowed to break a few rules. Bring in some fun elements and graphics – Canva is always dropping new assets and we love it! You may never be able to use some of these elements elsewhere. Social media is that platform where you can play and have fun. 

There you have it, 9 steps to building a naturally beautiful & cohesive Instagram feed.

If this is an activity you don’t want to tackle yourself, don’t worry. It’s one of our favorite services. Just email us to get started. Building a cohesive Instagram feed and social media strategy is our bread and butter. 

Ready to keep upping your social media game? Jump into six of our favorite, absolutely free, social media management tools.