Instagram remains one of the most popular social media platforms. With its main form of content being image-based, image quality is key. In this post, Castle’s Head of Social, Elena Rosewell will show you how to take good Instagram photos.

Instagram has quickly risen to be one of the most popular social media platforms to use. With roughly one billion active users worldwide, it can be hard to get your brand out there for audiences to see. How can this be done? There are several factors to grow your brand on Instagram, but in today’s post, I’ll just be tackling the most important factor of how to take good Instagram photos.

Is Instagram the best social media tool to convey your brand information?

Instagram is a great platform to convey a brand. It’s often used as a digital gallery of images. It’s also a really good platform for E-Commerce stores. Instagram has recently changed the algorithm to put more focus on E-Commerce stores and Instagram shopping. It’s definitely a good way to get your brand’s products and services out there.

It’s a great way to create relationships with a new audience, as well as to maintain and reinforce relationships with your current audience. It will really help the visibility of your brand and help it to grow. However, I wouldn’t recommend Instagram for every business.

Not every business needs to be on every platform, so I would recommend taking a few moments to consider whether it’s right for your business. If your business is more B2B led for example, then you may find that you get more traction on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Every business or personality can technically use Instagram, but it depends on what demographic you’re targeting. Instagram primarily has a younger audience with it being more of a chilled-out platform compared to the likes of LinkedIn’s very professional nature.

Instagram’s main purpose is to communicate to your audience visually which makes the platform great for E-Commerce platforms. Lead generation can have success on Instagram too, but it’s a lot harder to convey a brand message and a brand tone for lead generation through Instagram.

A person opening Instagram on their MacBook laptop and iPhone ready to share posts after learning how to take good Instagram photos.

How important is quality images on Instagram?

Due to Instagram being used as an online digital gallery, it’s really important that you know how to take good Instagram photos. This means making sure that your ratios are correct. Instagram’s feed is displayed as a four by five, or one by one ratio. However, when it’s presented on the grid, it will always be in a one-by-one format. Making sure it’s cropped to the right ratio is key as you want to make sure that nothing is cropped out. When things are cropped out, you can’t convey the whole message of the post.

Good lighting is a key factor when figuring out how to take good Instagram photos. You always want to be using good lighting, especially if it’s for a product shot. When you’re taking photos of your products, you want to make sure your products aren’t too under or overexposed because you want to convey your brand in the highest quality possible. You should always go for high-quality images.

Natural lighting is also a good thing to use as it can give you a more realistic intensity to your image. Although this may take more creative thinking and planning, the natural feel of the image is sure to attract more people and in turn, make them stop scrolling.

A person taking a photo of their bag on their iPhone.

How to take good Instagram photos?

Photography is accessible to everyone as everyone has a camera on their phone. With every new phone iteration on the market, the quality of the cameras improves with them. Apple with their latest iPhone 13 Pro released a video on the 14th of September to showcase the quality of the camera by having “Hollywood in your pocket”.

It’s really not about the tools you’re using to take quality photos, it’s about how you’re taking them. So again, just using natural lighting and making sure that it’s all in ratio – drawing the viewers eye to the post. When you’re posting your products, make sure that the product is either in the centre or you are using the rule of thirds.

The rule of thirds for photography is a guide that places the desired subject(s) to the left or right of an image. Think of it as a grid of three across and three down. This divides the photo into nine equal parts. This is used to help draw the viewer’s eye to a particular part of an image first to place more emphasis on a subject.

A great example of this is when you look at landscape photography, often is the case that you will see the landscape you search for appear near the upper third of the grid, allowing the viewers’ eyes to be drawn to that particular landscape.

A person taking a photo on their iPhone, using the rule of thirds grid on the camera to take a picture.

If you’re using portrait mode on an iPhone, maybe add a bit of depth of field to the image or even blur out the background by tapping your finger on where you want the camera to focus. I also recommend just getting creative. Creating your own graphics doesn’t always have to be a photograph, you can create your own graphics with some cool graphic designs. Making it stand out so that people will stop scrolling.

Could any business or personality use Instagram to grow their business?

As I mentioned above, any business could use Instagram – but I wouldn’t recommend that every business does. This is mainly due to the platform itself. Due to the platform being a fun and explorative platform that enables you to portray your products the way you want to. This makes it great for E-Commerce brands whereas lead generation can be a lot more difficult.

It also depends on what you’re using Instagram for. So, if you are a lead generation company, I’d suggest using Instagram to show your brand’s personality. Allow your audience a peek behind the curtain by having light behind the scenes posts, have team photos or even post a day in the life of an accountant for example. The task for a lead gen profile trying to market their brand can traditionally be seen as boring and have it be more fun. That’s what Instagram excels at, bringing life to things that can be a bit boring.

If you are after more insights and guides following this how to take good Instagram photos post, why not see our previous post regarding who to follow on Instagram. This is a guide to help you determine who you should be following depending on your brand.

Get in touch with us:

Gaining traction on your Instagram posts can be difficult. So why not let us worry about this for you? At Castle, we work alongside our clients to post content across every key social media platform that will guarantee results to build your brand.

At Castle, we deliver social media campaigns that focus on generating new revenue streams or raising awareness for your business. We have generated over £1.5 million last year via social ads and organic social content from selling products, working with influencers or via connected affiliates. Feel free to get in touch with us today to kickstart your brand.