 Hey guys, what's up? My name is Sonali and today I'm going to be showing you guys how to maintain an Instagram feed and a theme. So first off, I wanted to share the importance of having a feed and choosing your theme. It's especially important when you're trying to create a brand for yourself. So whether you're just a personal blogger or an entrepreneur or you opened up your own restaurant, if you're anything like that, you want to create an Instagram theme just so when people go on your profile, they will know that's your profile and that's who you are. And honestly, your personal feed says a lot about you, whether it's the kind of theme you choose or what kind of pictures you post. Another reason for having a theme is just to be creative and have fun with it. Not everyone is trying to create a personal brand and that's totally fine. I think it's so fun to edit pictures and just step up your Instagram game a little bit. So I wrote down a few things that I wanted to share with you guys and then we will get into a Q&A. I posted on my stories, just ask me any questions about anything related to Instagram. So we will get into that a little bit later. The first thing you should do is to decide what your vibe is. And by that I mean, what is your aesthetic? It doesn't always have to be trendy. In fact, I tried an Instagram feed just because it was trendy, like the whole warm tones thing is super on trend right now. But I feel like everyone was doing it and I was just kind of getting sick of it. I wasn't really excited to post anything because it kind of like took away a lot of the color out of my picture. So I went back to my more cool tones and contrasted feed and I definitely feel more comfortable and confident posting content with that kind of a theme. If your personality is more bubbly, then maybe try a colorful Instagram theme. There's honestly so many options. Just try looking up like Instagram themes on Pinterest and maybe that will give you kind of like an idea of what you want to create. Next step is to pick a filter or a preset. And honestly, this is probably the most important part of maintaining an Instagram feed because using the same preset or filter will make all these different pictures taken in different lighting, taken in different areas look all the same because you don't always take pictures in the same lighting or location. So using a preset or a filter will make all those pictures look alike. If you guys are interested, I am selling my presets on my blog right now and there are some individuals and then I also have some preset packs. The individuals are a great way to go because you save so much money. I know a lot of people don't really put out individuals, but mine are really affordable. So definitely go look at that and if you need any help installing them, then I will have another video that I will link you guys to in the description box of this video. And in that video is a discount code for my presets so you can get them a little bit cheaper even though they are already affordable. So right now I'm currently using my preset Sapphire on my Instagram feed as we speak. But while I was in Italy, I was using Venetia and Pomodoro and then a little after that I was using Quartz. So I kind of have a bit of a mix going on on my feed right now just because I was kind of feeling out my vibe. And now I know that cool tones are kind of my thing so I'm probably going to stick with that for a while. So I do want to show you guys how I edit my own Instagram pictures and it's a really fast process especially with these presets. I don't really have to like think twice just because I know what filter is going on my pictures all the time. So I'll do a little bit of like tweaking just like the exposure and maybe the skin tone. And then I will probably like face tune a blemish or two off me. And that's it. That's all I have to do for right now. I'm going to share my screen with you guys so you can follow along on how exactly I edit my Instagram. So even though you might pick a preset, the lighting will be a little bit different. You can't just slap it on a picture and then upload it just because everything's going to look a little bit different from lighting and locations like I said. So you might have to mix with the colors just a little bit because the skin tone is probably the most important part. So that color has to be very consistent. So for my Instagram, I like to make my skin tone like a bronzy look. So I have to make sure that the skin tones match the same in every single picture. The most helpful tool to maintaining an Instagram feed is definitely a planner app. I personally use better. Basically it looks like an Instagram feed and you can pre upload your pictures and you can kind of like organize your pictures to see where it will look best on your feed. And aside from my presets, this has definitely changed my Instagram game because it allows me to see everything as a whole. And that's definitely what you want, especially when you are trying to plan out your feed. So I've actually started to plan out three pictures at a time just because the rows are kind of built like that. It's like three, three, three. So I like to have it all kind of laid out just like that. Another thing to think about when planning out your feed is kind of how close up and far away the pictures are. So for example, I want to post a close up selfie on the edge of my three rows Instagram. And then in the middle, it needs to be like a farther away picture, maybe a whole body picture, maybe not even me, you can do it up anything else. And then the last one over here needs to be just like a close up again. So it can kind of be like symmetrical if that makes sense. So sometimes when I know I'm going to events, I will take pictures with people and then spread them out. So maybe I'll have a picture with someone right here and then a selfie of me right here and then another picture with someone else right here. So as you can see, it's kind of like a symmetrical game. You just kind of have to think that way and plan out that way, even if it is at events or just like taking them for memories, just try to plan it out because it just looks so much better as a whole. On the topic of symmetry, you want to think about what ways your pictures are turning. So for example, if I have a selfie turning this way on this side, I shouldn't post another selfie turning this way on this side. So a solution for that is just flipping your picture and you can do this in the Lightroom app. So on this side, my selfie will be going this way and on this side, my selfie will be going this way. Trust me, it looks so much better because sometimes I look at my feed and my pictures just all look the same and that's just not something that you want to have on your feed, just like every picture looking the same. So just kind of like make every picture a little bit different. Maybe you even want to turn a picture because you think all your pictures are just like straight on. So you can turn the picture a little bit this way and put it on this side and then remember to do the same on this way, turn it the opposite way. So that's all the tips I have for maintaining an Instagram feed. But now I'm just going to read off some questions that I received on my Instagram. First question is how do you make a picture work in your feed if the colors slash content doesn't really match? Sometimes my colors really don't match. So when I put it into center and I see that it doesn't match, I have to go back to the drawing board aka Lightroom and just kind of mess with the colors so that they'll match a little bit more. Sometimes I find just desaturating a lot of the colors just like is a lot easier. So maybe try that. Next, how do you choose an Instagram theme? So I would say like based off your personality first and then maybe what's trendy, maybe what you like to see on Pinterest, just like what's your aesthetic? What do you usually save on Pinterest? Maybe what do you save on your Instagram boards? Just kind of maybe create like a mood board of like what you like and then go from there. How do you maintain a feed with all different colors at the same time? Honestly, a feed can have a theme and not have to have the same exact preset on the picture. Like I said, you can always do a colorful theme and obviously not all the colors are going to be the same. But in that case, I would just make sure you're kind of thinking in a symmetrical thought. Like I said, if you want to post a close up selfie here, do it here and then post a far away picture right here. And then that way your whole feed will have like a theme, but not like a color theme if that makes sense. How do you come up with Instagram captions? I am so freaking bad about this. I'm going to be so honest with you guys right now. And this is like highly embarrassing of me. But I sometimes will just look up like Pinterest quotes like for example, if I have a banana in my hand in the picture, I will literally put banana quotes or banana puns. It's so stupid. Sometimes I really don't even like captions and I just wish I didn't have to put a caption. But like I kind of do and an emoji is not going to cut it. So yeah, that's what I do. I just like copy some stuff from Pinterest. How do you take such good pictures all the time? Do you get glam every day? Thank you so much for thinking that. Well honestly, when I'm filming these videos and taking my Instagram pictures, I will literally plan a whole day of just getting content and pushing it out so that I won't have to wear makeup every single day. Like you should see me every other day of the week. I look like a crazy person just because I really don't brush my hair ever and don't really put on makeup if I don't have to. So yeah, I'll try to get as much content as I can while I have makeup on. Honestly, sometimes I'll just like put on a cute outfit and go somewhere and take a cute picture just because I have makeup on. How do you find filters that work with your skin tone? That's a really great question. And you can honestly kind of just mess with the skin tone in Lightroom itself. And so you can kind of customize it to your own skin tone. Do you take all your Instagram photos with your professional camera or your phone? I honestly use a mix of all of it. I will try my hardest to take them with my Sony A5100. So it's not my DSLR. It's just a point and shoot mirrorless camera that I am obsessed with. It takes such great pictures and it is so portable that I can just stick it in my purse and carry it wherever I go. I definitely take a majority of my pictures with that camera. But sometimes I do pull out my big DSLR, which is the Canon 70D. And then on the off chance that I don't have my cameras around, I will reach for my phone. And usually a lot of my selfies come from my phone. For some reason, like they turn out a little bit better on my phone than my cameras. But a lot of like my outfit posts and all of that do come from my cameras. What's the best way to build a bigger following? I'm honestly struggling so hard with this right now. I feel like my following has been plateauing for like the past year or so. It's definitely discouraging, especially when you are putting out so much content and actually like working towards that. But I think a really big thing that people underestimate is hashtags, especially now that people can follow hashtags. I think that if you post a couple hashtags on your picture, then it can definitely reach a wider audience and also tagging your pictures. So even if you're not a fashion blogger, you can always tag the brands that you're wearing. And then it will show up on their tagged feed. So that's kind of like getting featured without actually getting featured. But that's also another way to get a larger following is to get featured on bigger accounts. How do I maintain an Instagram feed where people like everything? So I'd advise you to kind of just see what your analytics are and what your most popular pictures are. So personally, I get the most likes on my selfies and not of other things. So if I'm not in the picture, I will literally get half the likes I do on a picture that I am in. But going back to thinking symmetrical, it's hard because sometimes you do need to post the pictures that you're not in just to make your feed look more aesthetically pleasing. So you kind of just have to take that hit. And sometimes it won't be a consistent number of people liking your pictures. And you're just going to have to deal with it. But I would definitely say look for your most popular pictures. I definitely think that there's apps or even websites that can even do this for you automatically. The last question is do you have any tips on taking aesthetic pictures? So just a couple that I can think of at the top of my head is to always straighten your pictures. Like if you have like a door frame, try to straighten it with any of those lines in the picture. It will honestly look so much better. And sometimes even cropping in your picture makes it look a little bit better just so you can see more details. So I know I've been preaching the whole symmetry thing. But another thing I can think of is just think about your rule of thirds. You don't always have to photograph your subject in the dead center of the picture. Sometimes the pictures look a lot better when the subject isn't in the center. Sometimes it's just better to get a different perspective. So maybe photograph your subject on this side of the picture or even this side of the picture or a little bit lower and close up just take a lot of different pictures with different perspectives. So that's all of my tips for maintaining my Instagram feed. I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Go ahead and follow me on my Instagram so you can keep up with my feed. It is just so underscore gnarly without the G. And I'll see y'all in my next video. Bye guys.