If you want to market successfully on Instagram, you need to know the latest techniques to make your posts cohesive and give your brand an instantly recognizable look. This is what is known as the “Instagram aesthetic,” or appearance. It comprises the grid layout, color palette, tone, and overall feeling of your feed, and should be incorporated in some way into every post.

The concept of an Instagram aesthetic has been around almost since the platform’s introduction, however, so our social media experts want to show you how to freshen it up for 2020. Staying on top of the evolving aesthetic trends is what helps convert your visitors to fans, and your fans to customers.

 

Refresh your profile

Back in the day, when people used to do everything on a desktop computer, companies had websites that featured a home page, an introductory page that told visitors all about what they did/sold. That was then, Instagram is now. And millennials are increasingly forsaking Google in favor of Instagram when searching for what they want to buy.

So your Instagram profile information needs to serve as your company’s home page, offering a quick who, what, where, why as well as your brand’s hashtag!

Scale back on the edits

You may be happy to hear about this trend, which minimizes the time-consuming requirements of heavy editing and perfectly posed photos in favor of posts that lean more toward authentic-looking, candid-feeling images.

This doesn’t mean you won’t have to edit, just that it shouldn’t look as if your photos were done by a pro in a studio. This subtle effect can be achieved through small color tweaks that reflect your color aesthetic, or repetition of your particular grid style, or filters that remain consistent across your feed.

 

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Keep it consistent

User-generated content (UGC) is vital to capturing and maintaining interest in your feed, but sharing and reposting uncurated videos and images will disrupt your overall aesthetic. There are two simple ways to solve this:

  • include only Stories, images, and videos that already conform to your aesthetic, in quality, color, or theme, for example;
  • edit content to match your aesthetic by selecting a single component—color or filter, for example—and editing for that.

The latter doesn’t have to take a lot of time, but it’s worth it to ensure the overall feel of your feed remains consistent.

instagram aesthetic

Be all-inclusive

When people are being marketed to, they are much more likely to respond to images that reflect them. Over twenty years ago, Dove Moisturizing Body Wash was a pioneer in this style of marketing, making news at the time by featuring women in their ads with all kinds of body styles.

So if you want more people to follow your brand, you need to expand your horizons beyond the perfectly posed, young, white models so often featured in Instagram posts. If you know what demographics your brand appeals to, then you should take pains to feature them all on your feed.

Are your potential customers a mix of young, middle-aged, and older? Do they include all races? Men as well as women? Be sure your posts feature every demographic you want to sell to.

 

Keep it moving

Static images may be beautiful and may conform perfectly to your aesthetic, but motion is what captures viewers’ attention. So be sure to include movement in your feed. You can accomplish this relatively quickly by adding animation to your Instagram Stories. This doesn’t require a huge amount of effort: a simple winking eye or flashing text will work.

Fortunately, there are many new easy-to-use apps for Instagram Stories that can practically do all the work for you.

 

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In addition to these suggestions, we have numerous other ways to help you maintain your Instagram aesthetic in 2020—just ask us!