7 Ways to Make Your Instagram Marketing More Awesome

The visual nature of Instagram makes it an ideal place for makers to show off products, engage with customers, and grow their community.

To help you get the most out of your Instagram marketing and ensure your feed is fueling your business I’ve assembled a collection of seven insights you can use to make your Instagram account more awesome.

Use Natural Light

There’s nothing like natural light to give beautiful luminosity to photos, plus, photos taken in natural light tend to require less editing or color correction. If you can move your subject closer to a bright window for a quick photo, go for it!

Love all these patterns together – #tbt to fall 2014.

A photo posted by Erin Dollar (@cottonandflax) on Oct 1, 2015 at 4:24pm PDT

Give Love to Get Love

Instagram is a community, so if you want more engagement on your photos, interact with other people and give them likes and comments, too! Search for other users who are in your industry or customer base, and be sure to interact with them on a regular basis. When you interact with other makers on Instagram, you help to create a vibrant community that will help to spread the word about who you are and what you do.

Post Early, Post Often

To get maximum exposure on Instagram, you should plan to post at least once a day, and even three times a day if possible. If you wait to post until after dinner, you’re missing out on all the fans and followers who were checking their feeds at lunchtime! Make sure to post beautiful, inspirational photos throughout the day in order to reach the maximum number of followers.

Think about composition

Consider all the different ways you could capture the same subject – profile view, from a distance, from above… there are so many ways to approach a photograph of your work. Advances in smartphone cameras have turned us all into photographers, so it’s not a bad idea to brush up on traditional photography skills to help set your images apart on Instagram! CreativeLive has lots of awesome photography classes to get you started.

Monday, back to work! ✏️?

A photo posted by Erin Dollar (@cottonandflax) on Aug 31, 2015 at 2:01pm PDT

Edit out the flaws

Use Instagram’s tools to brighten your photos and crop out any clutter or distracting elements. I also like to use special effects and filters available through apps like VSCO, Color Story, and PS Express.

Create a memorable series

Sharing content that relates to a specific theme on a regular basis helps to create familiarity among your followers. This could be a series of process shots in your studio, a weekly peek into your sketchbook, or a location that you return to again and again. Use a special hashtag to unite all of the photos you post under that theme, so your new fans can explore the whole series.

Thanks so much for your excitement about the new keychains! Forest green has sold out, but charcoal grey is still in stock. Find them in the Gift section of my shop! (PS: has anyone else been playing around with the #acolorstory app? Love how it got the perfect grey blue tone of this bench to come through.)

A photo posted by Erin Dollar (@cottonandflax) on Feb 4, 2016 at 8:39am PST

Show AND Tell

Instagram is primarily a visual platform, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t think about the words you use. Create a one sentence bio that shares what makes you unique, and make sure you’re using the captions of your photos to give context for your photos and encourage conversation in the comments section. Use your voice in both your visuals and your writing!

Learn more about marketing on Instagram and connecting with your customers on social media on March 17 at 9:00 am PST. RSVP for the free, live class now.