And having an on-brand Instagram style is crucial to turning visitors into followers. The good news? You don’t need great photography abilities, pricey editing tools, or a picture-perfect feed. In this blog article, we’re teaching how to develop a great Instagram aesthetic to grow your account, and show off your brand’s unique style and tone.
Why is Your Instagram Aesthetic Important?
Nowadays, your Instagram feed is pretty much a CV, portfolio, and website all rolled up in one.
With just seconds to introduce yourself and show your value, a compelling Instagram aesthetic might be the difference between a visitor pressing follow or tapping away.
So, if you want to express who your business is and what sets it apart, a consistent Instagram profile can do that from the minute someone comes on your page.
This doesn't mean your IG needs to be highly manicured, but it does require spending the time to find out a style that fits for your company.
Perfect Your Instagram Aesthetic in 4 Steps
Want to discover how to make a lasting impression and build your community? Here are four steps to get started:
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Establish Your Brand
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Choose a Consistent Instagram Theme
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Maintain Your Aesthetic with Your Icon, Feed, and Stories
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Plan Ahead
Step 1: Establish Your Brand
Remember that part in The Lion King when Rafiki asks Simba who he is? Well, your brand is Simba and now you need to answer the question.
Your brand’s identity is the basis on which you’ll build upon. It’s your why and will help you form your voice, the style of your articles, and how you engage with your community.
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Ask yourself:
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How would you characterize your brand in one sentence?
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What’s your purpose?
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Who is your target audience?
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Why should Instagram users follow you?
Once you’ve got those on lock, you’re on the way to better conveying your Instagram aesthetic.
Step 2: Choose A Consistent Instagram Theme and/or Color Palette
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Now that you've established your brand, it's time to determine your Instagram look.
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Creating a mood board may get your creative juices flowing and guide you in the direction of what you want your feed to look like.
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Whether that be a continuous theme, a color palette, or just a general vibe:
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Include a combination of colors, textures, patterns, and phrases to help you better perceive your feed.
TIP: Remember, as your brand changes, your color pallet may too. You don't need to stick to the same Instagram look forever – perform yearly check-ins to evaluate whether it needs an upgrade.
Step 3: Maintain Your Aesthetic with Your Icon, Feed, and Stories
From your Instagram symbol (aka profile photo) to your Stories Highlights, your Instagram’s design is dependant on several components.
To keep them all on-brand, here are three strategies to maintain a coherent Instagram style on your page:
1: Make Your Instagram Icon Match Your Brand Aesthetic
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An simple method to keep up appearances on your Instagram feed is to match your profile image to your general design.
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Think about it: If you’re a food blogger with an Instagram symbol of a cat, people could become confused and tap away.
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Having a relevant profile photo provides users a feel of who you are and what you do right off the beginning.
2: Curate an Aesthetic Instagram Feed Your Instagram feed is the first thing a visitor sees when they come on your profile.
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So, adopting the same (or complimentary) filters, cropping, and editing style may help maintain your feed appearing consistent.
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Here at Later, we employ a bright and poppy color palette to assist enhance our brand's appearance and feel:
3: Curate Aesthetically-pleasing Instagram Stories
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When developing your Instagram look, you’ll also want to keep your Instagram Stories in mind.
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They don't need to be picture-perfect, but generating coherent Instagram Stories may help establish your brand and keep fans coming back for more:
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This might be as basic as utilizing the same Instagram font, or using your brand colors when using text or drawing tools.
Step 4: Plan Ahead!
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Planning ahead is crucial to establishing a great visual design – that way you can display your worth and captivate followers, right from the start.
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With Later’s Visual Planner tool, you can see how your feed will appear in advance and make sure your new Instagram post will blend with your old stuff.
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Rearrange or switch out photographs and videos by dragging and dropping items from your Media Library until you’ve discovered the optimum composition for your feed:
Read Also: 3 Ways To Use Social Media to Grow Your Blog
5 Instagram Aesthetic Ideas
From pink colors to hazy photos, we’re witnessing a new wave of aesthetics flooding the ‘gram.
If you need a little inspo, here are seven options to play with.
1: Unedited, Yet Curated
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Authenticity is everything – flaws and all.
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Creators, companies, celebrities, and common users alike are seizing on this trend and releasing batches of unedited photographs and movies in a carousel post or Reel:
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The premise is simple: discuss what’s going on in your life in a raw, unedited way.
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Curations can be random uploads from your camera roll, highlights from the month, or a more particular event or activity.
TIP: While the unedited photo dump is a ~aesthetic, there’s still some curation needed to make the article shine!
2: Instagram’s In-app Fonts on the Feed
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If you’ve spent any time exploring memes recently, you've definitely seen more postings using Instagram's in-app fonts:
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Instagram introduced a ton of new typefaces to pick from in 2024, so you can quickly make memes with a burst of color to complement your entire look.
3: Blurred Shots
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Seeing double? You’re not alone.
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This aesthetic is all about out-of-focus photography, ranging from subtle to fully-blurred action shots:
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The best method to try this aesthetic? Add some movement the next time you take a shot or use VSCO’s blur editor to manually replicate the appearance.
4: Pink Hues
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From subdued pastels to vivid neon hues, Instagram loves for the color pink!
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Want to duplicate the look?
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Head to an editing program with a pink-toned filter and apply heaps of grain.
5: The Reels Aesthetic
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The Reels style has experienced a boom in popularity, and this Reel from Uncle Studios is the ideal illustration of what that looks like:
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This highly styled design often contains a succession of photographs or clips synced to trending audio, an atmospheric filter, and a bespoke text overlay.
