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How to Create the Perfect Insta Feed in 5 Steps

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at BU chapter.

If you’re like me and enjoy posting cute pictures to your Instagram that create a theme, this is the article for you. I’m not sure when Instagram became more of a hobby to me than just a social media page, but I’ve had a lot of fun with it so far! Read these 5 easy tips to create an Insta feed that is both fun and easy to keep up with!

 

1. Find out what pictures you want to post 

Credit: Lee from America

The first step to a thriving Instagram page is posting pictures that you love and feel good about. This could be anything from landscapes to food pictures to selfies. Figuring out what pictures you like to take and post makes it easy to discover opportunities to take those pictures. I personally enjoy taking all types of pictures, my Instagram is a jumble of photographs from every category and this is fine too! You do not need to stick to one kind of photo, nor feel the need to post a different style photograph every day. Finding inspiration for photos can be difficult and I often look at famous Instagrams to see what they post. I gravitate towards food, travel and lifestyle bloggers since they have the same interests as me and inspire me to take pictures of my own food and life. Finding people who have been successful with their Instagrams is not hard in today’s age and you are likely to find someone that can inspire you! Take this picture from Lee From America: we have similar interests and her photos inspire my Instagram constantly. 

 

2. Learn how to edit 

Once you have discovered your “type” of photo, figure out how you like to edit (or not edit) them. I own a few editing apps that I use on almost all of my photos. I’m not talking about anything too advanced here, my main photo editing app is VSCO. VSCO (like many other editing apps) has a variety of premade filters and tools to pick from. Filters will offer a new color scheme for your photo, while tools are manually used to retouch the photo. There are countless free apps (including VSCO) that let you play around with photo edits as much as you like. Even Instagram has photo editing capabilities! After playing with possible edits, choose one that you think enhances your photo the most, hit the save button and now you have an edited picture!

Above is what my typical edit looks like for my Instagram pictures! I use one of the three “C” filters offered by VSCO. This filter adds a warmer yellow hue that brings out my picture’s natural colors. I turn this filter up only a little, so the original colors are only slightly altered. I then enhance the saturation and highlights. Highlights reverse the shadows in the picture, “defining” the features of the photograph. Lastly, I turn down the exposure to keep the colors from being washed out! This is the recipe I enjoy using on my photographs but this is not for everyone. I like my pictures (whether they are on Instagram or not) to be bright and colorful and I use editing to enhance that! Remember that some photos may not need enhancements and look great on their own, and that is great too! It is your Instagram and your photos, so edit as little or as much as you please!

 

3. Create a theme

Credit: Gypsea Lust 

In my opinion, this is the most important step. I love how pleasing to the eye a good Instagram feed is. The mesh of colors or styles of pictures can help create a flow within your feed. This can be done by editing the picture or by taking pictures that have something in common. The easiest way to achieve a consistent feed is to keep a similar theme of light. Based on the two steps above, you may have found you like to have lighter/darker photos. Having photos with a similar exposure or brightness can generate a common theme amongst them even if the photos themselves are very different. Another way to achieve this is with the colors of your photos. As I mentioned earlier, I like bright and colorful photos, I achieve this by editing them, but also by taking the majority of them outside and in direct sunlight. One of my favorite Instagrams is Lauren Bullen’s who is more popularly known as Gypsea Lust. Her breathtaking photos from around the world are all edited with similar presets and have a slightly underexposed and shadowy look.

The color scheme ties her feed together and makes it pleasing to the eye. Her feed screams of someone who puts lots of work into creating pleasing photos which mesh well together.

 

4. Come up with cute and funny captions! 

Credit: CaptionIdeas

Use your creativity! Your caption can be whatever you like — funny, quirky or nothing at all. I personally love cheesy captions, 10 points if you’re able to fit in a pun as well. Captions should generally relate to the photo that you’re posting; this could mean giving us information on the picture, location or action you have photographed. They can be novels about your day or just a few emojis, and that is the beauty of it. There are no limits (except the newly discovered 2200 word limit) to what you can say. But, if you are really stumped, there are even caption inspiration Instagrams that give you quotes or sayings you can use as captions. So have fun captioning as much (or little) as your heart desires!

They even give emoji suggestions, how could you possibly pass that up?

 

5. Post and enjoy!

The best part about Instagram is that it is yours to manipulate and create in the way you desire. You can post and delete as much as you want without affecting anyone but yourself. So remember to have fun, and post away!

 

Enjoy your new Insta feed and keep your theme up!

 

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Taylor is a freshman at BU with a dual degree in International Relations and Journalism. She loves vegan food, writing poetry and art museums.
Writers of the Boston University chapter of Her Campus.