Instagram is incredibly valuable for businesses, especially since users are so eager to engage with brands. A few facts: 200 million users check out at least one business profile each day, and 130 million users monthly click on shopping posts.
However, a vast presence of brands on Instagram doesn't mean that each of those businesses managed to utilise the service wisely. Many companies still struggle to increase their followers, expand their reach, and drive traffic to their website via Instagram by making various social media mistakes.
A vast presence of brands on Instagram doesn't mean that each of those businesses managed to utilise the service wisely.
Profile Picture
Did you know that an average user makes a conclusion about a profile in as little as 30 to 40 milliseconds? With the small size and the lack of zooming function, you must optimise your profile photo.
To maintain a high-quality profile picture, we recommend uploading at a higher resolution, ideally 1000 x 1000 pixels or above.
It's best to use your logo mark, as some logotypes might be hard to read at a small size. Another thing to remember is to leave some white space around your logo and not to overcrowd it with unnecessary information or icons.
A well thought through profile picture can add immense credibility to your account. You want people who see your profile picture not to doubt that your business is legitimate.
Images and Visuals
In the "public court of Instagram", some biggest Insta-crimes of all are posting boring or spammy content, stock photos and low-res imagery.
For traditional posts and videos, we recommend uploading files with an aspect ratio of 1:1 and the size of 1080 x 1080 pixels or above.
Also, there is an option of creating portrait or landscape posts with the aspect ratios of 4:6, 9:16 or 1.91:1. However, you have to consider the overall feed design, as your landscape or portrait posts will be cropped to a 1:1 square on your grid.
Don't just post for posting's sake or because you want to complete your grid with pics from the same colour scheme. Create posts that your audience will care about - something entertaining, informative, or fun. Give your followers value so they'll interact and, ideally, build a deeper relationship with your brand.
Providing high-quality content will help you keep your existing followers and give new people a reason to start following you.
Grids
Using sliced up images can be a way to create intrigue about your product — which is why you can often see them be used by new businesses or in the lead-up to product launches.
For this reason, this strategy was popular a few years ago and seemed to be coming back. Despite this, the cons outweigh the pros, which is why we don't recommend slicing or splitting an image (unless you want to check if your clients are not robots).
Typically engagement drops anywhere from 10% to 30% when you upload two photos simultaneously; once you hit the third, the drop is 50% to 80%. This is just taking regular images into account, so you would expect the stats to be amplified for images your followers see on their timeline that they can't make sense of unless they see the bigger picture.
Consistency
Your Instagram account is one part of your brand's ecosystem.
Your business probably has a logo, a website, other social media pages, and maybe even a storefront. These elements should consistently tie together to ensure your brand is strong, clear and recognisable.
Your logo should be on every profile, and all communications should share a similar visual style and tone of voice.
Depending on your audience, there may be variations in the kinds of content you share. But overall, all of your media should feel connected and correlate with your brand strategy.
Conclusion
By avoiding the discussed mistakes, you can make your Instagram account more impactful and visually pleasing. Your posts will be more relevant to your followers, and you will be able to learn from the success of your competitors and present a more unified brand image by keeping the larger picture in mind.
If you are serious about social media, it's time to look at designing your content. There are many mistakes you could be making, but the good news is, they are easy to fix!
We looked at four different social media design issues, but of course, there are many more, for example, hard to read fonts, wrong colour combinations, limited viewing options, overused graphics, not enough negative space, and misaligned text. When you take your time, plan and customise your grid to suit your social media platform, the results will be well worth it. Once you find a style and colour scheme that fits your brand, stick with it.
And you don't have to do it alone because working with the Ergon Creative team makes the process simple.