With roughly 1 billion monthly users, Instagram is one of the biggest and most popular apps worldwide. Generating such an insane amount of traffic every single day, it’s important that we make the most of the features available to use on it, and create unique and engaging content that stands out amongst the crowd.
Being an image-based platform, it’s obvious that users need to use interesting and attractive photo and picture content to get noticed. But how can we push to get the most out of Instagram?
Full page Feeds
The full profile grid view is something that often goes overlooked on Instagram accounts. As most people tend to see individual posts on their own scrollable feed, clicking on an individual account to look at one user’s full grid view can commonly be overlooked.
However, there are several profiles out there that have made their full-page grid view one of the main attractions of their Instagram presence. This requires meticulous planning of future posts and the ability to blend each post into one large patchwork image. Once users finally uncover these vast artworks, this will produce spectacular results, gaining some amazing feedback and social media coverage.
For instance, @AldiUK use this technique to create the illusion of huge feasts. They usually display a large range of their food and drink selection on their full view grid. And their Christmas sections really stand out, to help build the sense of gathering together for a big meal with friends and family while displaying what they have to offer in store.
Another great example is @micahnotfound, who creates vast tapestries of his artwork which blends styles, technique and subject matter into one endless creation.
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Don’t be intimidated by creating your own version; you can create a similar effect using just three images across one line of your Instagram profile. Just be aware that posting single image posts afterwards can knock your line of images out of sync!
Flowing Carousels
Introduced to the platform in 2017, carousels are an ideal way to fit more content into one individual post. It essentially gives us the option to create a post that is nearly 10 times as wide as a regular Instagram post.
One of the best ways to prevent our carousel posts from looking like a boring PowerPoint slideshow, is to provide a flowing experience as users swipe along our content. The use of background shapes, gradients and overlapping images also help tie the seams of the individual images together seamlessly. This gives the experience of travelling along one large, wide image, rather than simply swiping from one slide to the next.
Below, you can see how one of our case studies uses subtle lines and shapes to help connect the individual slides together.
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We can also use carousels to display wide, panorama, landscape photos. Just make sure the image has a ratio of 2:1 to spread over 2 slides, 3:1 for three slides, and so on. Next, split the image into individual slides. Then, you’re ready to go!
@swipeablecarousel offer great examples of panoramic photos converted into swipe-able Instagram posts.
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Interactive Stories
The stories feature on Instagram isn’t just a handy way of keeping content flowing outside of your main feed. This section of Instagram is home to a number of features, which are only available within our stories. These include the likes of polls, sliders, and stickers, all of which help make stories perhaps the most interactive part of the whole app.
Plus, there are now numerous interactions available on stories, with quizzes, questions, polls, sliders, countdowns and more being available at your fingertips. And this offers endless possibilities of new ways to engage with our followers.
To really make your stories stand out when using these interactions, make sure you design your post with the intended interaction in mind. You can position sliders to point at different parts of your story, or divide images up to display the choices of a poll. Interactive story posts not only help keep your audience entertained, but they also allow you to get insights directly from your followers, so make the most of it!
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