Remember when Instagram first came out? People didn’t know what it was all about and would post really random pictures & the filters were awful!? Nowadays, everyone is a wannabe InstaInfluencer. Our feeds are full with pictures of avocado-smothered-sourdough with perfectly whipped poached eggs plonked on top and a sprinkling of chilli flakes for decor. If it’s not something avocado-based, it’s those extremely pretty breakfasts, which looks like a rainbow explosion — açai bowls I believe? I actually had to YouTube ‘açai’ the other day as I couldn’t pronounce it (FYI it’s ah-sah-ee and I still can’t manage to say it properly).

But this blog isn’t a rant about people photographing their breakfasts. Let’s get back to the topic. For many years, I have used Instagram. However, I didn’t make the most of what it has to offer. Although it is social media and free and accessible for everyone; it is also a great business tool. I have used it for both personal and for my freelance photography, as well as the new digital marketing job that I started a couple of weeks ago.

Posting for work & for a personal blog:

Hashtags are life (But use them wisely. With great hashtags comes great responsibility)

They get you noticed & I would know; I’m a bit of a hashtag queen. My manager bet me today to increase our Instagram followers by 50 by the end of Jan 2019. With my game face on, I got 20 new followers in 2 hours from posting 2 pictures by just hashtagging. We are a marketing agency, so I made sure the hashtags were relevant to the content I was posting.

Instagram will let you add up to thirty hashtags in one post, but it’s better to select the top 12 or so that are extremely relevant to your image.

(we gained 52 followers in just a couple of days for anyone who’s interested).

Quality over quantity — ALWAYS

It’s not advisory to bombard your followers with photo after photo. If you do this, be prepared to see your number of followers rapidly fall. Make sure your pictures are as good quality as they can be. Viewers don’t want to see pixellated images.

As well as a Digital Marketing Executive, I am also a Freelance Photographer who graduated from MMU with a first in Photography.

Here are my tips on how to better your photography:

• Levelling and cropping
• Removing red eye
• Enhancing exposure when the image is too dark
• Making the image is crisp by increasing sharpness

I advise the following editing tools for those perfectly Instagramable photos:

– Huji Cam (free app) is my favourite app of all time. It is great for that vintage feel — very on-trend at the moment.
– Adobe LightRoom CC
– AirBrush (another free app), good for quick corrections, especially blemishes on the skin.
– VSCO — I’ve used this for years and use it as a blog as well as saving the edited images to post on Instagram.
– PicStitch for picture collages

Take a look at my photography page if you’re interested.

If you require social media assistance, contact this great marketing agency who will help.