Creating A Good Looking Instagram Grid
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from having my own business, it’s that it’s super important to have a practical approach to marketing your business in such a fast moving time! I thought I’d share a few of the methods I use when it comes to creating content for social media platforms and curating a good looking grid. let’s be honest, first impressions count and you’ve only got a couple of seconds when people land on your page.
As a photographer that works with small businesses that are both service or product based, I thought I’d pop some tips and suggestions here that I share when working with many of my own clients. Hopefully you find this quite helpful too!
Social Strategy
It’s really important for any business to have a social media strategy. Having a strategy helps pave the way and gives you direction but also helps in developing content pillars. Some of you might be wondering what content pillars are? Well, I’m here to help with that!
When coming up with your strategy, it’s really important to brainstorm. I find good old pen and paper really helps me here. You need might already know these but if you don’t I think it’s really important to know what your business and service is, who you are and what you want to share with your audience. It might sounds really basic but if you’re not sure what you want to offer then you’ll find it hard to communicate that visually.
Now you know these, It’s time to map out your services, what you offer and what your point of difference is. This will allow you to communicate and create these things through your content.
Once you have all of these we can work out your content pillars. These are crucial to your strategy and will help massively with those moments of not knowing what to post. Trust me, we’ve all been there.
I’m going to use my business as an example here!
I have 9 content pillars that at any one time I have to share and promote on socials. These 9 pillars are 9 different squares on the grid. For me personally, I have to communicate a range of services and offerings with my community and have broken these down into the graphic below for you.
In list form I’m sharing content on all of the below:
Category tiles - to share the varying work I can shoot and offer to potential clients.
Testimonial and The G Journal - I alternate between these two, showcasing a client review and then swapping to give back to my community with educational or interesting blog content.
Wedding tile - promoting my most recent wedding work
Portraits/headshots
Reel - I’m trying to incorporate one of these on the odd occasion to help keep up with the algorithm but tailoring my cover image to tie in with the 9 content pillars
Food and Beverage - promoting hospitality work
The Print Store - product tagged tiles
Fashion
G content - this is generally a portrait of me or BTS content that allows people to connect with me, the face behind the business.
You might not have 9 pillars, it might be just 3 or 6! There’s no right or wrong.
To work on yours, I’d suggest drawing up a mockup instagram grid or pop your email in below at the end of the article to download a free template I’ve created just for you to print straight away!
Tips
Be consistent with your content pillars, keep it to your specific number but allow yourself flexibility with your content.
Remember that content can be interactive, use reels, GIFS, Imagery and graphics.
Colour blocking tiles allow you to break up your feed as you can see with my testimonial tile. This keeps things fun and fresh and allows you to play with colour.
Think of how you can create your own imagery instead of using generic stock content.
Sign up to one of my beginner subscription packages to help with staying on top of your recurring content. Posting is easy once you have the content there ready to roll out.
Break everything down in your brainstorm, the more detail you have the easier everything is.
Have fun!
If you have any questions or would like some help, leave your comments below and I’ll be sure to reach out!
Thanks for reading!
G x