Tips and Apps for Planning Your Instagram Feed

Have you ever thought about planning your Instagram feed? Harmonious feed, appealing colours, varied captions and even less time spent– sounds amazing, doesn’t it? We’ll tell you what to look out for and which apps to use for planning your Insta feed.

It has probably happened to you before that you scroll through the feed of popular influencers and think: wow, that looks great! We here at stylink promise: you can do that too! The key to creating a professional-looking Instagram feed is planning it properly.

Plan your Instagram Feed: High-quality pictures instead of snapshots

The perfect pictures for Instagram are not spontaneous snapshots. In order for your entire Insta feed to be appealing, you should regularly arrange time for taking photos with a high-quality camera. That sounds like a lot of work at first, but you actually save time if you do a small shoot every two weeks and then have the luxury of choosing from a large pool of images. This is far more effective than trying to set up the perfect Instagram post every day.

The right look for your Instagram feed

One of the most important aspects of a perfectly planned Insta feed is, of course, the colours in your pictures. Most followers decide within a few seconds whether a feed is appealing. Pick a shade or a colour palette that suits you!

What type of content are you creating? What is your target demographic? As a fashion blogger, soft nude tones might suit you; as a travel blogger, you could rely on naturally strong colours. Maybe you’ll create a small moodboard on which to collect inspiration. This will give you a feeling for your perfectly planned Instagram feed.

Some influencers also plan their Insta feed with the seasons and adjust the colours accordingly. In spring, they post pictures with bright, pastel colours. In summer, colours like white and blue are used to showcase the hot sun and cool beaches. In autumn, warm colours with lots of auburns and oranges fill Insta feeds. And in the winter, dark muted colours are used. Ana Johnson plans her Instagram feed this way, for example.

In addition, we recommend that you always use the same presets and filters in order to create a consistent pictorial language. If you want to find out more about the optically perfect Instagram feed, then take a look at our blog article on the topic “#instagoal: creating a coherent Instagram feed“.

Hacks for a tidy Instagram feed

When planning your Instagram feed, it’s not just about choosing the right colour but also about the motifs. In order to ensure a harmonious look, make sure to post diversified motifs. If the same pose appears a few times next to each other in your Instagram feed when you post your OOTD, it quickly becomes repetitive and seems unimaginative

With videos or Reels, you should make sure to use a nice thumbnail so that your feed stays tidy and doesn’t look restless. Instagram gives you the option to choose a display image from the video. Alternatively, you can use an editing program to cut a high-quality, thematically appropriate photo at the beginning of your video so that you have an appealing cover photo that also looks good in your Instagram feed. First impressions are everything! Another option for videos is to post the video as a slideshow along with a photo. Then you use the appropriate photo as the first slide and the video second so that your followers have to swipe. This is useful for behind-the-scenes videos, for example, if you want to show how a certain Insta pic was created.

Planning your Instagram feed: the best apps

By now, there is a large selection of apps for planning your Instagram feed. Most apps operate on the same principle: You upload pictures from your album to your smartphone into the app and arrange them the way they would look in your feed.

In addition, you can also plan the captions with such apps. Hashtags can be organised in groups, for example, on the subject of make-up. You can select all hashtags you have created once for each subsequent posting with one click. Taking the time to schedule your Instagram feed once a week can save you a lot of time. You come up with texts and hashtags for a week, save them in the app and set the date and time. After that, you don’t have to do anything other than sharing the prepared posting when the app sends you a push notification as a reminder.

Preview

With Preview, you can drag and drop the images in the app to plan your Insta feed. In the free version, you have an unlimited number of uploads available, whether they are photos or videos. With the planning tool you can set the times when your posts should go online – the app reminds you and you only have to publish the prepared post. Preview has a repost function, various filters and an image editing function. You get access to basic statistics to evaluate your posts in the basic version.

Planoly

Planoly is an official partner of Instagram and Pinterest. The basic version is free, but it only contains 30 image uploads per month. With the app, you can plan your Instagram feed by arranging the pictures in the app as you would like to see them later in your Instagram feed. You create the caption and hashtags in the app, and you can combine your frequently used hashtags into groups so that they are ready for use with one click. This app also helps you plan the posts in advance with the schedule function and reminds you to share the post via push notification. You can also use the analysis tool to see your top posts and which times are best to post.

Unum

Unum offers a storyboard function that is also available for other social apps. With this app, you can plan your Insta feed by arranging the images using drag & drop, thus testing what it will look like later on Instagram. As with the other apps, you can use Unum to organise your hashtags in groups and save the captions. Unum offers you a pre-selection of presets and filters as well as reminds you of the time you entered in the app’s calendar tool for posting. As with the other apps, it also offers insights. The basic version of the app is free.

Ready for the perfectly planned Instagram feed?

With a little preparation and using one of the recommended apps, you can plan your Instagram feed like a pro and save time. Nevertheless, you should keep an eye on the current situation because a photo with sunglasses and a latte macchiato on the balcony and the caption “Are you enjoying the sun today? #springtime” seems implausible when winter sets in and it’s not #throwbackthursday!