by Sara Tasker
HAVE FUN
Realistically, it’s impractical to try to keep all these variables in check 100 per cent of the time. I often joke with friends that they can check in on the state of my mind by seeing how balanced and matching my grid is that week! The top two or three rows of your gallery are what new visitors will judge you on – but equally, two weeks from now, those rows will be so far down that only the more dedicated scrollers will see those posts. Play around, experiment and have fun. It feels good when it all comes together, but remember it’s not the end of the world when it falls apart. Just keep moving forward.
POST WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE IT
There’s no rule that says you have to post daily, or that you can’t post multiple times in one day. Post when you feel you have something worth sharing, and let your content dictate how active you are in any given week.
GALLERY POSTS
Within each Instagram post it is possible to share multiple images within a slider, under the same caption and gallery thumbnail. This is great for telling more of a story or grouping similar works together, but be mindful that not everyone will swipe through and look at the additional imagery. If you want an image to have maximum reach, save it for its own post, and use gallery posts for detail shots and additional angles.
CAPTIONS
Captions – the text we share below an image – are so easily underestimated. People will pour hours of effort and energy into their hashtags and image, but give only a moment’s thought to what they write underneath.
Yet a caption that delivers – that makes us laugh, or cry, or look twice and leave a comment – is a way to connect with our Instagram audience in a really meaningful way. From a boost in the algorithm to building solid new friendships, the words, captions and comments are really the unsung heroes in this image-based app.
ADD VALUE
As with our imagery, a caption must be worth our readers’ time. I think of this as ‘giving people something they can take away’. It might be an idea – some inspiration, a recipe, a song, a styling tip or travel recommendation. It could be as simple as a feeling – a laugh, a connection, some nostalgia for a similar time in their life. Or it could be the start of a conversation – a caption that makes them feel close to you, or a prompt to share their own experience, a chance to be heard. If I use someone’s recipe, I’m more likely to go back and see what else they have shared. If someone made me laugh aloud over breakfast then I’ll swing by their grid the next time I’m feeling low. When we give our audience something to take away, we’re building something memorable, impactful and real.
MICROBLOG
The art of logging your days in caption-sized posts – what you were wearing, thinking, feeling, doing – gives your audience a passenger-seat ride alongside on your day. Though they’re short, this style of caption still needs all the style and finesse of an actual blog post – draw readers in with evocative language, beautiful details and big belly laughs.
Start to take note of the different conversations you’re having in life – on Twitter, at the pub, over lunch. What topics are getting people talking? What anecdote always goes down especially well? Communication is an art form, and we practise it daily in a thousand different situations.
ENCOURAGE REPLIES
Most people know by now that adding a question encourages comments (and some good algorithm ranking!), but how often do you read one that just sounds insincere, tacked-on or dialled-in? By asking real questions, that we genuinely want to hear the answers to, we can spark conversation and really get to know our audience.
Asking a question in your caption and scared nobody will answer? Like being first on the dance floor, it’s always easier with your friends by your side! Share your post with friends via a direct message and ask them to come and help get the conversation started. If nobody joins in after that, then it may be you’re asking the wrong questions, and need to dig into why.
Ten prompts for captivating captions
1. What have I been feeling really charged up or emotional about lately – good or bad?
2. What experiences have I had lately that others can probably relate to?
3. What am I going through that my audience could help me with?
4. What topics of conversation do I always come back to with friends?
5. What have I been learning lately that I could share with my followers?
6. What questions do I have about who my followers are? (Location, likes, age, etc)
7. What’s topical to discuss within my community?
8. What embarrassing anecdote is it time to share with the world? (I got the most tremendous outpouring of replies after confessing to neglecting to lock the toilet door and getting caught mid-pee on the train…)
9. What are you working on at the moment?
10. What’s the story behind your photo today?
EXAMPLE OF A CAPTION
My favourite thing to do after Christmas is to sow seeds and start planting for warmer weather. It’s fairly ridiculous, I know – far too early and much too cold – but seeing those little green shoots come to life on my windowsill is like therapy to me. It’s a reminder that – to steal a line from a Danish poem – ‘within you there’s a world of spring’. Anyone else got any rituals they use to fend off the midwinter blues?
INSTAGRAM STORIES
When Stories are used properly it’s a way to foster a genuine reflection of day-to-day life, and behind the scenes of a more polished grid. I love a mix of boomerangs, talking to video, snap shots and music. When they’re done well, it’s hard not to feel like the person you’re following is a friend: it’s quite an intimate way to communicate, because the ways to execute it are so personal.
@superlativelylj, UK
Instagram Stories is a platform within a platform – a space, away from your main ‘grid’ of more perfect images, where you can be raw and real and relevant. Content generally lasts only 24 hours (unless you choose to showcase it for longer in ‘highlights’ on your profile), giving it a sense of impermanence and freedom that our main gallery can feel like it lacks.
I encourage people to think about it almost as a totally different platform – just like Instagram is different from Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook etc, Stories is distinct again. The advantage it has over these others is that it ties seamlessly with your existing Instagram account, meaning you can share followers across both these platforms, and impact one by what you do on the other.
Updating your Stories offers a different way to connect with your followers’ hearts and minds. While the Insta-grid is a place for a considered, mature approach, Stories is more like the lively and messy younger sister. On Stories it is A-ok to be unconsidered, unstyled and unprepared – in fact most people I’ve surveyed say this is exactly what they want!
CONSIDER YOUR AUDIENCE
Increasingly we’re seeing people dividing their time between Stories and the Grid unevenly. Some naturally prefer the more ‘rough and ready’ nature of Stories, where others are drawn more to the beautifully presented gallery page. Equally, not all users have adopted Stories into their Instagram routine yet, and we can expect that side of the app to get increasingly busy over the next couple of years. Now is a great time to get in at the ‘ground level’ of Stories, but if it doesn’t appeal to you, it probably won’t appeal to your true audience, either. (See here for more on finding your audience.)
WHAT TO SHARE
As on the main gallery, value and visuals still count a lot in Stories. Anything you share should have something to offer the viewer and be presented well enough to capture their interest and deliver your message.
Editing and refined photography isn’t necessary, but still apply the basic rules about getting clear, in-focus shots, making the most of the available light and considering our framing. GIFs, stylized text, stickers, music and apps all help to create more visually appealing content, but use them to enhance your content, rather than to be the content itself. Nobody likes the backing track
to drown out the vocalist (ok, except my husband, but his musical tastes are questionable!).
If you’re sharing video, hold the camera as steadily as possible, and remember each slide will be limited to a maximum of 15 seconds in length. Longer videos can be split into multiple slides which will run seamlessly together, but often 15 seconds of your subject is more than enough.
The very best Stories come together to form just that: a narrative of a day, a week or a life of the person behind the lens. Consider saving up clips and images until the end of a day, to allow you to tell a more cohesive story with a beginning, a middle and end. And don’t forget to enable DMs so people can reply – we’re here to be sociable, after all, and communication is a two-way street.
POLLS & QUESTIONS
The option to include polls and questions stickers in Stories offer extra ways to get to know your audience and create a two-way relationship. Use polls for closed questions (‘Would you like a recipe for the muffins I shared? Yes please / Don’t tempt me’) and questions for when you’d like more in-depth answers (‘What would you like me to stock more of in my store this autumn?’). Or, host a Q&A and let your audience put their questions to you, which you can answer in a series of Stories later on.
TALKING TO CAMERA
Talking to camera is increasingly flagged as an essential skill for the next wave of social media, with vloggers and Live broadcasters building huge audiences through face-to-face conversation. But for a lot of us, especially the ‘webtroverts’, it can feel daunting and unnatural. If you’d like to get the hang of it, Stories is a nice place to start, as you can assume that only your loyal following will get to actually see it and you have the chance to record and delete as many times as you like before sharing.
To maximize views on your Stories, be sure to location tag and hashtag whenever relevant.
You can shrink these down or blend them with the background colour to make them subtle – geotagging alone has been shown to improve view count by up to 79 per cent!
‘Avoid using simple “yes” or “no” answers in your poll. People like to be liked, and will probably give you the nicest answer, not the true one, as polls aren’t anonymous (thank goodness). For example, if you’re a product-based business looking to Stories to help with the introduction of new colours, pre-orders or similar, then maybe try ‘GIVE IT TO ME NOW’ vs ‘NOT FOR ME ATM’. Above all, ask yourself if you really need your followers’ opinions. I make my polls fun, and generally they relate to mundane things in my life such as ‘which goes in first, the milk or the tea’? Or when I am outraged at what someone’s got in their basket at the supermarket. But let’s be honest – when has a Yes or No poll ever really helped us? It hasn’t in politics, and I’m not sure it’s always going to be the best compass in your life. Use them for fun, use them sparingly – you already know the answer if it’s really important. And to answer your question, the tea goes in first, every.single.time.’
@bettymagazine, UK
TO WRITE IN RAINBOW TEXT IN YOUR STORIES
Type your text and then highlight the words you want to make rainbow-coloured. Hold one finger on the blue line at the end of your highlighted text, then use your other hand to hit the purple colour option and hold. This opens up the whole colour chart. Keeping both fingers in contact with the screen, gradually swipe left, moving your lower finger across the colour chart and your upper finger along your text selection. It can take a few tries to get the hang of it, but the result is pretty, eye-catching and immensely satisfying when you do!
If you’re more of a visual learner, check out my video tutorial for this along with my templates for Stories at meandorla.co.uk/hashtagauthenticbook
Some tips from the pros on talking to camera: look at the camera lens, not your own face; plan what you’re going to say and how you will end the message; and do a few takes to get it right. Make use of flattering face filters (can we get these for real life too, please?) to ease you in to having your face on-screen, and use a subtitle or caption to help users know what you’re talking about.
Check out my ‘talk to camera’ challenge at meandorla.co.uk/hashtagauthenticbook for monthly prompts and tips to get you chatting with your audience more.
INSTAGRAM LIVE
Instagram Live offers you the chance to ‘live broadcast’ yourself to both your existing followers and across the wider app. As terrifying as it sounds, it’s actually surprisingly fun, with most who give it a go enjoying it more than expected! Live broadcasts are a great way to answer questions, show people around, teach or run a tutorial or simply chat with your audience in real time. You can choose to go Live with a friend, via the split screen option, which can make it slightly less intimidating and give you somebody to bounce off.
If you’re nervous to begin with, consider setting your profile to private before going Live, then opening it up to public again once you’re done. That way, only your followers can see, and you won’t be promoted to strangers via Instagram’s promotional pages, which is where the trolls sometimes sneak in from.
Some users report an influx of spam or abusive comments during Live broadcasts, so check out my pointers on safety (see here) for ways to protect yourself from this.
Ten ideas for interesting Instagram Stories
1. Be human. The most popular Stories are raw, real and relatable – whether it’s sharing your work or domestic disasters, or simply speaking in a candid and open way.
2. Share little doses of wisdom. These could be daily recipes (people can screenshot to save), tips, uplifting quotes, parenting prompts or ways to make social change. You can make and save these in advance to help build consistency.
3. Share a problem you’re experiencing, big or small. Ask people to offer their suggestions.
4. Bring your audience along with you to an event or trip. Try to piece the clips together to form a narrative, with a beginning, middle and end.
5. Give a short review of something. Share what you’re reading/watching on Netflix/talk about the facemask you’re wearing/tea you’re drinking. (Tag the brand for a chance they’ll notice and repost your stories to their audience, too!)
6. Livestream yourself reading your latest blog post. You can then answer questions about the topic.
7. Host a live coffee morning. Using the invite-a-friend feature, share the screen and chat face to face with your audience.
8. Reinforce your main content. Whatever your mainstay content is, share more informal everyday versions of this. My main gallery is about the little moments of magic – so I might share my kettle boiling, a rainbow on the moors, the lovely handwriting on a letter that’s just been delivered.
9. Show behind the scenes – of your work, your routine, your business or your life.
10. Share other content you’re loving on Instagram. Use the paper aeroplane symbol under any post (including your own) to share it in an Instagram Story.
SUCCESS ON YOUR OWN TERMS
The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.
Molière
So you’re nailing your content – now, how do you grow your audience? With social media offering us all the temptation to track our popularity in tangible stats, it can feel like the most important question of them all. In reality, it’s more nuanced: yes, most of us would like an audience, but it doesn’t need to be huge in order to start making things happen.
One great thing about posting your work online is the ability to get immediate feedback on what you share. It’s kind of like putting everything out for scoring by the world at large – which can be both wonderful, and a little overwhelming. For this reason I urge you not to get hung up on the numbers.
Instagram, like any platform using algorithms to arrange and order its content to viewers, does not necessarily prioritize the very best photography. As a commercial enterprise, its interest is always going to be in promoting the content that gets the most response – be that shares, time spent watching, likes or comments. It’s important that we me
asure our work’s success on our own terms.
LIKES AND COMMENTS
Each time you post an image you’ll collect these two basic numbers – how many times it was liked and how many comments it received. Most people tend to judge their work by how many likes it attracts, which in my view makes surprisingly little sense.
What means more when you give it as a viewer – a like or a comment? Which is more throwaway, and which is the deeper response? If you’re looking to build relationships, establish an engaged and loyal community around you and get real, meaningful interaction with your audience, comments are the metric to really invest yourself in. Sure, it looks less flashy on the imaginary leader board of like-counts – but when it comes to converting an audience into something more, comments are worth infinitely more than the likes. As long as your comment count is gradually increasing, you can trust that you’re on the right track.
FOLLOWERS (AND UNFOLLOWERS)