How to Curate Your Instagram Grid
A lot of wedding and creative business owners put pressure on themselves when it comes to Instagram. Pressure to pick the right photo, write a compelling caption, use the right hashtags, post at the right time…shall we go on? And, while doing the best you can to hit all of those points comes with the territory of being a business owner, expecting perfection across the board is just an added stress that doesn’t really do you any good. (We say that and sometimes inflict those same impossible standards on ourselves—you’re are talking to a team of detail oriented perfectionists who want everything to be just right.) So today, we wanted to have an honest conversation about the pressure to have a perfect feed but also share our advice to help you curate your Instagram grid. Read on for inspiration, ideas, and maybe the words you need to hear in order to take the pressure off.
“Good Enough” Builds Business, Not Perfection
Since starting your business, you might have heard the phrase progress over perfection as a reminder to keep things moving. Having this attitude is important for most aspects of your business, and it certainly holds true for sharing on social media! The pursuit of perfection is a long and nearly impossible journey (not to mention usually riddled with opportunities to overthink the shit out of things) and we don’t know a business owner who has the luxury of time. So, while striving for perfection might set you up to feel incredibly proud about the work you do, it’ll slow you down to a snail’s pace.
As much as it might make you cringe, good enough is what builds business. Because, good enough means you’ll put a basic strategy on paper. Good enough means you’ll hit that launch deadline. And, good enough means you’ll keep consistent with marketing your business on social media.
Instagram as a Brand Building Tool
We get where the pressure to be perfect comes from—your business is your baby after all! And, whether you are wanting to make sure your business looks more established than it is or that it attracts that next tier of client, one of the ways you do that is through how you present your brand. (This is where the Instagram talk comes in.) Instagram is a powerful and low cost tool for building your brand as a wedding or creative business owner and it’s no lie that how you present your brand is something that influences your client count. But, obsessing over how your Instagram feed looks is only worth your time if it is doing more than just looking pretty—it needs to help you communicate your marketing message. So, when we talk about curating the perfect Instagram grid, we’re really talking about perfecting the visuals you use to draw people into reading that message.
Tips to Help You Curate Your Instagram Grid
So, what do we do to curate our Instagram feed and how can you curate yours? Each of us shared the piece that we contribute to our own formula for the “perfectly curated grid.”
Cassie / Don’t be afraid to mix it up and pull in graphics to break up a string of shared images. This not only helps you share things like customer reviews or important announcements, but it can also act as a bridge for inducing different colors into your grid that otherwise might not flow.
Jen / Don’t be afraid to shoot your own content! Pick a preset that you love in an app that is easy for you to use and edit the photos you take with that same preset each time (adjusting for exposure and occasionally white balance, when necessary). If you edit with the same effect on each photo your grid will still have a cohesive look and feel to it.
Christy / Create a pattern to follow. I love interspersing objects with people and photos shot straight on with flat lays.
Tayler / Use a scheduler app and have your content calendar open when you sit down to plan your posts. This not only allows you to see how the images look next to each other, but also how you are setting yourself up to have the appropriate visual for the messages you need to share.
