This is the fourth in a series of posts interviewing successful Bristol Instagrammers about their use of Instagram.
This installment focuses on posting; themes, images, frequency, planning and curation.
Read what they had to say..
Missed part 1? You can read it here. Or Part 2? Read it here. Or Part 3? Read it here.
Tell us about your Instagram feed theme.
Chroma Stationery – Colour is the main focus of the feed, as that’s the focal point of Chroma (which means purity and simplicity of colour), each image has to be bright, positive and happy.
Pinkman’s Bakery – We focus on posting bright, bold and colourful images that showcase our product and process. A lot of it is informed by the brand values and in trying to communicate them to our customers, as well as the style of our photographer.
Kimba Digital – Our theme is blue, green and white – brand colours. Simples.
Bird and Blend Tea – The only themes we really follow are fun, colourful and cheerful. We keep our feed seasonal, because that matches the way in which we release new blends through the year!
Conclusion: Each of these brands has very simple rules that they follow when creating the look and feel of their grid. Something you could try too!
Tell me about the images you use in your feed.
Chroma Stationery – We use a lot of user generated content, which is lovely. Our audience and customers are the people who love the brand the most so posting their photos is important to us. I always re-post content from creatives, as we’re big advocates for supporting independents and creatives. Everything else is taken on my iPhone 8 and edited through various apps including VSCO, Whitagram and Photoshop.
Pinkman’s Bakery – The images we use are mostly our own, we do occasionally repost from customer’s feed with permission. We are lucky to have a developing photographer on our management team who creates the images for us.
Kimba Digital – We use a mixture of professional brand photography from @Visuable, stock photos and photos / images we create ourselves.
Bird and Blend Tea – We always use unique images and never stock photos – these are a mix of communiTEA photos (i.e. those taken by our wonderful fans and our Wholesale Partners) and photos taken by the TEAm who work with us! Our product photos are all shot by our Teabird George and often his photos will feature on our Instagram too but sometimes we’ll use snaps that we each grab on our phones in the office or our stores! Especially if cute animals are involved!
Conclusion: For a feed that looks tip top mix up user generated images, professional photography and high-quality images taken by your team.
Tell us about how you use Instagram stories.
Chroma Stationery – It tends to be behind the scenes style content, which doesn’t make it on to the feed. I try to post every day but it’s hard to remember sometimes when I’m busy!
Pinkman’s Bakery – Our stories are normally posted by our management team. These include special products that are perhaps limited in production, special events we attend such as markets or trade shows, and behind the scenes posts in the bakery.
Kimba Digital – We post about #InstabizWeek, photos of us with cleints, stories about the office , testimonials, about speaking engagements, stories about Bristol and so much more…
Bird and Blend Tea – We try to stick to just posting stories when we feel like we’ve got something funny or interesting to show our followers!
Conclusion: Test and learn what works for your audience but use stories consistely to show behind the scenes of your brand and engage with your audience.
How do you decide what content to post?
Chroma Stationery – It’s quite instinctive, I curate the feed ahead of time and make sure I’m covering all my content categories. I’ll often gather together posts that I like and maybe not post then for weeks or months. But they’re there ready for the right time.
Pinkman’s Bakery – It depends what images we have available, what products or offers or ideas we’ve decided need to be communicated to our followers within that certain time period, and whether we can think of something interesting to say about it!
Kimba Digital – It has to be relevant or of interest to our audience – otherwise it’s just self-indulgent and we won’t post it.
Bird and Blend Tea – Basically, if we think it’s going to be fun or educational or informative, we’ll go for it!
Conclusion: Everybody is different. Find a content plannning strategy that works for you.
How much time do you spend curating your Instagram feed?
Chroma Stationery – It does take quite a while, probably a good 3 hours a week to ensure that the feed works as a whole and I’m communicating the priorities of the brand. It is one of our top marketing strategies so it’s crucial we get it right.
Pinkman’s Bakery – This can vary depending on how much time we have available, but anywhere between two hours – four hours a week on average. A lot of the time, it’s thinking what to say and how to make the most of the image that’s been chosen, as well as how certain images sit alongside each other in the grid.
Kimba Digital – Anywhere between 1-3 hours per week.
Bird and Blend Tea – We devote many hours to our Instagram feed (and our other social channels too!) because we think it’s incredibly important! We’re all about spreading happiness through our teas, so we’re happy to put in the time and effort, especially if it means a silly tea pun might make someone smile!
Conclusion: Between 1 and 4 hours per week is the average amount of time spent curating and creating content for Instagram.
