How to Create a Post on Instagram: A Complete Guide
Looking to take your Instagram to the next level? Want to know some of the secrets to creating posts that capture attention and drive engagement?
Well, look no further! This comprehensive guide will cover everything you need to know to craft engaging Instagram posts.
Whether you are a seasoned social media user or just beginning, this book will keep you well-informed and engaged, giving you recommendations and hands-on tips to get your Instagram goals.
How to create a post on Instagram?
1. Tap the “＋” icon at the top of your screen
Instagram’s changed its default home screen recently, so now when you want to post an Instagram Story, Reel, or even go live on Instagram, you tap the little \”+\” icon at the top of your screen.
From that list, you need to select which type of post you want to share.
2. Tap on a photo or video from your gallery or take a new one in the app
So Instagram, then it’s going to show you all the photos and videos that are already saved on your phone from the same library or gallery where you are to access them.
Select one(s) you want to upload into the application. Or you could tap on this little camera icon, take a photo, or shoot a video directly within the app of Instagram itself.
Finally, if you need to share more than one photo in one post, also referred to as a carousel post, tap the icon of several stacked squares.
Tap any image that you would like to include. Numbers will appear beside any pictures you choose to include in your post. Instagram does allow you to share 10 photos at most on a single carousel post.
Once you have selected the photo or image you want to upload, tap on the “Next” button located at the upper right-hand side of your screen.
3. Crop and edit the image
If you have not cropped your photo yet, do not be concerned because Instagram allows you to crop your image right in the application.
All you have to do is pinch the screen where the image is displayed to crop until you get your desired image size.
If you are unsure what the size of the image for Instagram should be, read our full guide on social media image sizes.
Instagram also provides users with inbuilt editing features.
Basic Edit Tools
- Filters: Applies predefined color and aesthetic changes
- Brightness: It adjusts the brightness of a picture overall.
- Contrast: It enhances the contrast of the black and white regions in the image.
- Saturation: It changes the strength and saturation of the colors.
- Warmth: It shifts the colors to warmer or reddish tones or cool and bluish tones.
- Clarity: It increases or decreases the sharpness of the image.
- Vignette: It darkens the edges of an image.
- Fade: It reduces the saturation and brightness of the color.
Advance Edit Tools
- Crop: Aspect ratio change or elimination of unwanted elements from an image.
- Rotate: It controls the image orientation.
- Straighten: It corrects tilted images.
- Dot Correction Removes spots or imperfections.
- Red Eye Fix red-eye in a photo.
- Tilt-Shift Miniaturize an image by blurring the background.
Creative Editing Tools
- Sticker Add a sticker, GIF, or text to an image.
- Draw Draws or doodles on images.
- Text Add text with lots of different fonts, styles, and colors.
Remember: The Instagram editing tools are changing regularly. Be sure to check in to the app regularly to see new edits and effects.
4. Select appropriate filters
You don’t have to be a designer to apply filters to pictures. Instagram has reserved filters for you, and some basic editing tools enhance the image slightly, brightening it up or taming overcast tones by adjusting the contrast and saturation.
All that’s required is to scroll to the right to see your filter options, tap one to preview it on your image, and then, once ready, hit that arrow at the top right corner of your screen.
5. Add creative captions
Like you’re writing copy for an ad, is where you would type out what will be your caption on your image. Text is such a great way not only to elaborate or add context to your post but also to help optimize your post on Instagram.
Also, try to craft a caption that’s catchy and creative, or informative and educational. That will give your followers a reason to engage with your Instagram post the moment they see it on their feeds.
6. Add some emojis in there, if you can
Adding emojis to your Instagram post caption is a great way to capture the attention of a follower or Instagram user. You can add relevant emojis to the caption without shyness.
If you do decide to take this route, avoid overusing emojis, though. It becomes distracting rather than enhancing. Try and maintain a minimum of using about 5 emojis at most. In this way, your post becomes eye-catching without it looking disorienting.
7. Use hashtags for better optimisation
With Instagram’s search feature, you can find content using a hashtag. So naturally, you want to include relevant hashtags in your caption.
If someone searches for a hashtag that you included in your caption, the more likely your post will be seen and other posts including the same hashtag.
If you don’t understand how to exploit a hashtag, read our blog on the secret formula to succeed with a hashtag.
8. Append your location tag
If you are hosting an event for your brand or launching a product in a particular city, you probably do not want to embed location details in the body of your caption. However, if you want to take advantage of the “Add Location” feature, this will suffice.
Tap the text “Add Location” to see a list of suggested locations. You can be specific, like an exact building, or general, like the country you are in. Adding a location tag will make it easier for people to find your post on Instagram.
9. Tag people or add collaborators
Instagram collaborations are when two accounts or more collaborate together to share content. It is, as stated above, the act of sharing content whether it’s in the form of a post, hosting a giveaway, or perhaps even creating something unique together.
A collaboration can be a great way to reach a further audience, gain some exposure for the brand or influencer, and also will be building some connections with other influencers for brands.
You may tag other users or businesses directly into your post by using Instagram tagging. This could be your best way to credit, acknowledge partnerships, or even just connect to your community.
10. Share your post on other social media platforms.
If you want to share your Instagram post with your other, connected social media sites, such as your Facebook page or Twitter account, slide the bar from the left to the right.
When you are ready to post, click “Share” in the top right corner, and Instagram will automatically share the post to your selected social media sites.
How much content to post on Instagram?
You do not want to overload them with too much content in the application, but at the same time, you don’t want to post too little content such that your Instagram account becomes forgotten. So, the question is: how often should you post on Instagram?
Honestly, this is one of those questions to which I do not have an absolute right or wrong answer. The kinds of answers you’ll find from online search queries will depend upon the different answers given.
According to a study from Forbes, what matters for Instagram is posting consistency.
If you want to be able to maximize engagement as well as generate followers, you can start posting on Instagram 10, 15 even up to 20 times a day. It does not affect your Instagram account.
Truth is, you might not find out what amount of content to put on the app if those numbers are just what most people are generally saying. You may have to first test your Instagram posting frequency before discovering that sweet spot for you.
Regardless of how much content you decide to upload onto the Instagram platform, ensure that you post it when the biggest percentage of your audience is on the app. Wednesday and Thursday have been the best days for sharing Instagram posts.
How to schedule an Instagram post?
Now that you know how to post on Instagram, let us now discuss how to schedule the same on Instagram.
Scheduling your posts on Instagram in advance will save your time, get you a consistent publishing schedule, and not disrupt the flow of your daily activities because you want to be sure that what you posted would surely be up.
Besides the timing of when to post your content, there are several other things you will consider to have an ideal Instagram marketing strategy. Here are some questions you may need to ask yourself:
What content type will you schedule? Posts? Stories? Do you wish to schedule Instagram Reels? IGTV?
What percentages of real-time content will be needed in your social media marketing strategies?
What day and what time do you want to share your posts?
And lastly, how do you schedule your content?
Well, if you don’t have a social media management platform like Locobuzz then business or creator profiles set up on Instagram can use the Creator Studio from Facebook natively to schedule their content.
This content scheduling tool helps you create and post right from your computer’s desktop.
This would also be a tremendous advantage to have as an Instagram content scheduler if you have a Creator account, as an influencer.
So here is how to use the Creator Studio to schedule posts directly into your Instagram account.
1. Connect your Instagram account to Creator Studio.
Go to Facebook and access the Creator Studio.
It will guide you through the process of linking your Instagram account to Creator Studio.
2. Select “Publish post”
Once you have followed the instructions to connect your Instagram account, you will see the Instagram icon in the top bar. Select this, then select “Publish post”. Then, select “Instagram Feed”.
3. Post your pictures
You will see one image to post as a post to your feed. You can select more than one image, and upload them as a carousel post. You may also post a video.
To do this, pick the blue “Add Content” link in the gray box, and select a file to upload.
4. Add catchy caption
Type out your caption, and add all relevant hashtags. Add some emojis, if you’d like, and your location.
5. Schedule your post
On the right-hand side of your page, just below and below the blue “Publish” button, you will find an arrow next to it.
Click on that and choose “Schedule”. From here, you can choose to post the post immediately or save it as a draft if you are going to make amendments to your post.
5 tips for creating engaging Instagram posts
Now that we know how to post on Instagram, let’s look at some Instagram content ideas you can post on the social media platform. As we have mentioned earlier in this article, there are many users on Instagram, meaning that there are a good number of people posting great content every day.
For every minute that goes by, thousands of pieces of content are scheduled and published. If you want to increase your brand as well as get in touch with the audience on Instagram, you cannot upload just about any image or picture and hope for the best.
What you post on Instagram should make you stand out from the rest because, as highly visual a social media platform as it is, it is all about the image.
So many brands and people are battling for attention so you need to give your followers creative content that nobody else can give them. Here are 5 ideas that might inspire your Instagram content strategy.
1. Ask Questions
Asking your followers questions is a great opportunity for engagement as well as helping with future content ideas.
For example, if you’re a fitness brand, you can ask your followers what they are currently struggling with pertaining to staying healthy.
Answers you will receive from your followers can further be used in creating content that addresses the issues they have raised.
Also, you can create a carousel post by asking questions on the 1st slide and posting the answers on the next slides.
2. Share user-generated content
Resharing what they create will surely be an easy-tried way to get the ball rolling on generating interest and interactions with your community of followers.
This is one way of showing you appreciate your online community while letting them know how they are utilizing your product or service.
A great example is Apple’s Instagram account: The brand reshares the designs and photographs of its followers daily. To do so, make sure to always credit the original creator of the post!
Consider creating your own branded hashtag so that your followers can use the hashtag when posting their content, and hence you can easily search the branded hashtag to identify posts from your followers.
3. Follow trends and challenges
Whether it’s an Instagram trend, or challenge, participating in the hottest trending, memes, or challenges can serve as an exciting way to give a peep into your brand’s personality yet prove yourself relevant to your followers.
Some excellent examples of this include a host of other social media challenges like the bottle flip challenge.
4. Share from others’ social media sites
If you don’t have the time to make content tailor-made to each social media site, then you can use cross-posting whereby you post the same content on multiple social media sites. For example, posting the same content on both Twitter and Facebook.
This is usually done when posting a screenshot of the tweet to upload to Instagram. Make sure that whatever you are crossposting falls within your brand.
5. Use influencer marketing to showcase your product
But do you have any influencers using your product or service? Much like user-generated content, why not share the influencer’s content on your own Instagram account?
Influencer marketing is great for building a brand and assists in building your social proof amongst your followers.
Whenever you engage with influencers that your followers know and trust their recommendations, this can enhance positive increase in your brand awareness and even bring you, new followers, to your brand.
If you want to learn more about influencer marketing, see our Ultimate Guide to Influencer Marketing.
