It’s no secret that I love Instagram. I mean, I really, really love it. It’s the perfect form of social media – I can be super nosy into my friends lives and see updates from awesome people with beautiful lives from across the world without all the crap that you get on Facebook and it’s prettier to look at than Twitter!
But there are things that I struggle with my own Instagram. I struggle with ‘curating it’. I am torn between creating a space that has a theme and just posting photos of things that I love. Most of the curated Instagram feeds that I find are ‘popular’ are all white, clean and ethereal, they have a theme to them. But I’ll be honest, my life isn’t all white – it’s filled with colour and mess so it’d be a lie if I started posting a world like that – but it looks kind of messy when I compare it to the feeds of others people that I love.
A few months ago I joined in with Whitney’s Instagram class about creating a beautiful & branded account- it was fun and I really did find it useful and I’ve started putting a lot of the points it raised into practice – I am thinking about and editing my pictures so much more and I can really see an improvement in them, but I am still struggling with this curation argument. Do I want my Instagram to be a brand or a real reflection of me?
So, I want to know your thoughts? Do you make a concious effort with your Instgram to only post things that ‘fit your brand’? Do you only follow ‘branded’ or themed Instagrams? Does it put you of when people random photos that aren’t ‘on brand’? And if you curate your feed – how do you find the time to do it? Do you stock pile images? Do you use certain hashtags? And, really, what’s with the ‘follow but if I don’t get a follow back in a week I’ll unfollow’ thing? It’s just annoying!
I know a lot of questions but I want to get some of your thoughts. Instagram is a side of social media that I love and it’d be a lie if I said I didn’t want to grow it, but I’ve been stuck with the same follower numbers for such a long time and I thought what better way to find out what to do than ask other users. I have an Iconosquare account (thank goodness for them returning back to the free account – $200 a month hahahaha) so I know when the best times for me to post are and I know who my most engaged followers are and I know who my new followers and unfollowers are but there is still so much to learn!
Tell me your Instasecrets!