5 Ways to Make a Killer Instagram Feed

This post will be a little different than my others posts.  I have asked my friend Becky Nutall, to do a guest post on a topic I’ve been interested especially since she has such a creative eye and is a photographer extradoinaire!

Have you ever wondered why some instagram feeds are so much more eye appealing and attention grabbing than others?  Why some instagram feeds can draw you in and keep you scrolling through their feed more than others?  What makes an instagram feed more attractive than the other?

Five Ways to Make a Killer Instagram Feed:

1. Pick an Aesthetic
Settle on a cohesive aesthetic that is seen throughout all of your photos. When you stick to an aesthetic, it will give you freedom to post content that might not necessarily flow; ie. food, travel, fashion, mom life, etc. When the color scheme and lighting are consistent with your aesthetic, you are going to have an Instagram profile that causes people to stop and scroll awhile. You might choose bright & minimal, dark & moody or colorful & vivid. Whichever aesthetic you choose, make sure it is appealing to YOU and to your eye. Don’t just copy another feed. By all means, be inspired, but find your own style. Doing this will make sure your feed stays consistent and scrollable.

Here is an example of my feed from my photography business @bschwartz. This profile lends to a bright, soft color palette with clean backgrounds and consistent lighting.

2. Shoot for your Aesthetic

Having professional photos or at least professional looking photos is important. I always encourage bloggers to learn a few tricks for photographing their own content. Here are a few tips to capture great photos;

• Keep your backgrounds clean and neutral.
• Always shoot in natural bright, daytime light. Photos taken in
bad lighting typically result in blurry, grainy and/or out of
focus images.
• Wipe off your phone camera lens. You would not believe how
much clearer your photos will be with a clean lens!
• There is also a time and a place to hire a photographer. When you do so; plan, plan, plan. Have several weeks if not months of content planned out that you can shoot for. This makes it possible to get the most for your money.

3. Edit for your Aesthetic
My personal Instagram account @nuttallhomestead is similar to my work account since it is what is appealing to my eye (as I mentioned above). Here I give myself a bit more freedom to bring in darker tones and more contrast. My @nuttallhomestead account still lends to bright whites, clean backgrounds and natural lighting.

My personal account is a mix of images shot on my film, digital, or iPhone camera. A large majority of the photos are iPhone shots that, I grab of my family on the go.  Everything I shoot on my iPhone I edit on my phone.
To help you curate a scroll worthy feed and have it flow naturally, you must have a consistent approach to how you edit your images. The two apps that I recommend are Lightroom and VSCO.

I personally use the Lightroom app since it works best with my style.
VSCO is a great option if you would like to edit your feed more towards the dark & moodier side.
Aside from those two, there are hundreds of photo editing apps out there, so find the one you like best, and then stick to it.

Here are few quick editing tips that I apply to almost every image I post;
• Brightness: I always pump up the brightness to give may images a clean crisp look.
• Contrast: I use sparingly but just enough to give my images a good pop and make my darks dark.
• Warmth: I always bring the warmth down and slightly desaturate the blues and teals in my photos.

4. Curate for your Aesthetic
Look at your feed as a whole, not just individual photos. Your grid should tell a story of you and your brand. The wedding venue I own @clayvenues is consistent with the tips I have given above, but is warmer in its color palette.
A viewers first impression of you and your brand is when they click your name and those first 15 images pop up.

Are you telling them to stay and scroll, or are you scaring them off with a disjointed feed? If your first 15 posts are not appealing to the eye, they will most likely click back and find somewhere less hectic to scroll. I know this is all a tall order, but below are a few tips to help make it more simple.


The hardest part of making your Instagram feed look cohesive is figuring out how to make each individual post look good beside the others. The best way to curate your feed, is to preview it in a grid app before you post to IG. My favorite app for this is called Plann, it allows you to upload images and then move them around to find the most appealing order.

My favorite feeds have blank space, clean backgrounds and they avoid redundancy in their posting. An example of something you would avoid while utilizing Plann, would be posting two selfies in a row or posting two selfies on top of each other. This is the beauty of Plann, you can upload all of your “to be posted images” and move them around until they fit just right.

5. Last but not least, remember to have fun, share what you love, share what brings you joy and share your life in a beautiful way. People will follow along with the story when you are passionate and have a cohesive feed.

About Becky:  I am a fine art film wedding photographer. My husband and I live in Colorado Springs with our one year old son, Clayton, and pup, Stella.
  I had the privilege of attending Brooks Institute of Photography, where I received a bachelors of art in professional photography. I have captured hundreds of weddings over the past 14 yearsWhen I am not shooting weddings, I have been busy with our newest venture of starting Clay Venues, a modern event space in Colorado Springs.
  I love to workout, bike with my family and spend time on our back patio.

I would love to connect with you all and see your beautiful Instagram profiles grow.
www.bschwarzphotography.com
@bschwartz
 @nuttallhomestead
 @clayvenues

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