An Easy Way To Plan and Manage Your Instagram

Instagram has become a fabulous way to showcase some areas of my home and share some behind the scenes photos.  With the population becoming more immersed in social media, having an Instagram account for your blog is practically a must-have.  If you’re like me, you want to be able to see the full picture of what you are sharing to the public.  I think about how each photo relates to my brand and how all my social media accounts represent my brand as a whole.  I get asked questions about my Instagram planning by fellow bloggers and instead of sharing with those who ask, I’m sharing it all with you today.

I’ll note that I by no means have near the 100K following of some bloggers.  Though, I have seen my account grow by at least 400-600 new followers a month and I thought I’d start to share some of my best blogging and brand tips with you all today.  I understand that some of you are not on Instagram for a blog, but you may want to become a social influencer one day and these tips certainly apply.  Nowadays, social media is all about the interaction and relationship with followers.  So today, I’m sharing a free and easy way to plan and manage your instagram account posts to grow your following.

Trends For Instagram:

Before I get to the planning aspect, the first thing is selecting the perspective of your Instagram account.  What stories do you plan to share here?  Do you want a completely behind the scenes approach or just styled shots?  Do you want to have personal messages or share decorating tips and idea?  Are you going to curate posts or have an organic approach?  You basically want to settle on a perspective that represents your brand.  Account followers are going to follow based on what they see.  Switching things up all the time will only confuse your followers.  You don’t want to offer shots of your home or style, then suddenly change to sharing photos of family members only.  It is perfectly okay to share posts different from your regular posts on occasion, but doing a complete about face on your content is not going to maintain your followers.

I have found in my own account and researching others that most followers of home decor accounts prefer room shots versus close up shots.  If you share mostly DIY or crafts, think about sharing a styled shot.  Although I love shooting close ups, I do try to use them sparingly.  If you are planning to use close up shots only, that’s perfectly alright too.  Just be sure that it aligns with your brand’s image and that you try to maintain this perspective for your account.

Content is key for social media.  Your followers want a different perspective than what they see on your blog.  Having content that is relatable and aesthetically pleasing are the two most significant factors in growing your account.

Planning Your Instagram Posts:

To plan my Instagram images, I like to check how each photo will relate to my feed.  A few months ago, I came across a free app called UNUM.  (*Let me pause and mention that I am in no way being compensated for this post, I’m just sharing what I use in hopes that it will also help you)  It imports your feed and allows you to see how your planned photo would look with the remaining feed photos. This is a perfect feature for those who like a more cohesive look.  I don’t go out of my way to keep a cohesive look, but I do like to see how the coloring and photo flows with the rest of my account.  UNUM also allows you to shift photos in the cue to view how multiple uploaded photos would look together.

Just add your photos and shift the boxes around to plan out your posting schedule.  You can set up your caption and an alert to remind you to post under the free settings.  You can also purchase the feature to do the posting for you should you wish.

By far, the most interesting aspect of the app is the statistics.  I use these stats to plan when to post on a given day or time.  UNUM keeps track of which posts had the highest interactions and if you scroll over, you can even see which hashtags received the most interactions as well.  I use these stats to plan out when to post my best photos (though I do have spontaneous posts as well!).

I have been keeping track of my Instagram progress since January of last year and have seen a substantial growth in my interaction and following.  Though I can not relate all the growth completely to my management plan, content has played a big part, having a management plan does help get my content out at the right time.

I hope this little bit of info inspires you to manage and grow your own Instagram account!  Feel free to check out my own Instagram account here and give me a big Yola!