welcome back to bliss bean hq this is where all the magic happens and where today i'm going to
share all of my content creation secrets with you i got my first instagram account in seventh
grade i was very much a stickler for rules so even though my parents could not have cared
less i waited until i was 13 to get that account i would not have thought back then posting knitting
projects and rainbow loom bracelets that instagram would one day literally become part of my job
and that i would care so much about it so first up let's start with why and how instagram was
like the backbone of my photography business when i started senior portrait photography making an
instagram was pretty much a no-brainer because number one it's image based and that was what
i did and second pretty much all of my audience which was high school age students were on there
so one of the very first things i did was i went through and i tried to follow pretty much everyone
at her school hoping that they would follow me back and then the second thing i did was i started
posting my photos very consistently obviously i had lots of photos but going through the archives
every single day to find one to post on instagram was not the best way to do it so what i did was
after i finished a set of photos i would pick my favorite instagramable ones convert them to
a smaller file size and then move them over to a folder of photos that i had prepared for posting
you might only be doing one photo shoot per week but if you spread that content out you'll look a
lot more booked and busy than you actually are and this applies to all sorts of instagram accounts
not just photography ones like if you're a blogger and you go and shoot content for your blog and you
get like five similar-ish photos of you spread them out and then people will be like wow
she goes downtown and takes aesthetic photos all the time but really it's all from just
one day but to create that illusion of like an effortless and spontaneous instagram actually
takes a lot of planning and preparation so thank you so much to later for sponsoring this video
later is a tool that will make all of this pretty tedious planning and scheduling stuff
very seamless very easy very breezy you create your profile based on what it is that you do
on instagram and what your goals are you can upload all of the media that you've set aside
as instagram content so it's in one place and visualize how it'll look in your feed and then use
your calendar to easily schedule it and prepare the caption and the hashtags all that stuff you
can either set it to auto publish at a specific date or time or ask it to send you a notification
if you do this all at the start of the week for example this will save so much time rather than
opening up instagram each day scrolling through all your photos to choose one writing a caption
they also have free trainings where you can learn how to better use later and how to grow on
instagram so whether you're a small business a big business a small content creator a big
content creator and you want to get smarter and more efficient about how you use instagram
you can use my code blissbean2020 to get one month of a paid plan for free just head to the link in
the description to redeem that code all right so let's move on to how i use instagram for my blog
these days i'm a planner if you haven't noticed i plan out all of my posts captions photos etc
mostly in advance unless i'm like traveling or something otherwise there's honestly very little
spontaneity when it comes to instagram for me but i think that allows me to be more creative because
i can really take my time with taking nice photos and choosing my words carefully and just like
crafting my overall strategy and presence on instagram i have a video on how i plan content
across my entire blog and that's how i plan stuff for instagram as well having one master calendar
really helps me to visualize like okay i have a journaling video going up this week so next week
i should do a journaling challenge on instagram there's a newsletter on monday so i should mention
the challenge there there's a podcast episode on wednesday so i can record a couple of snippets
and spread them out throughout the week writing captions my captions are really not that clever
so i don't have much advice on that i write what i have to say i try not to let it get too long and
i do try to let my personality infuse into it a little bit i try to use some emojis and some gen
z speak to relate to my audience i guess lately i have been trying to incorporate some calls to
action so ctas there's some marketing speak for you check out the link in my bio comment this
emoji if blank or asking people a question for hashtags i have my own little list of hashtags
that i've compiled over the years pretty much like any time i would post anything that kind of
belonged to a different category i would go online and see what the popular hashtags were for that
but if you don't want to do that work that i did later also generates automatic hashtags to make
it easier for you when it comes to shooting photos unless it's like a travel photo or a
look at me i have friends and occasionally go out with them and ask them to take photos of me photo
i will have little photo taking sessions where i create a bunch of content all in one go i look
at my content calendar and see okay what's coming up what can i shoot today and then make a list of
those photos on a notepad and just scribble down some ideas for locations props posing lighting etc
i do try to set aside plenty of time for taking photos because if i feel rushed while i'm shooting
i get stressed the photos turn out terrible i feel terrible everything is terrible for cameras i used
to use a mix of my phone and my cameras but now i'm actually a really big fan of just the iphone
look i do feel like it's trending a little bit which is very convenient for me as a content
creator because i would so much rather use this than my big dslr camera that i'm filming on right
now so i can't show you hdr mode on the iphone is amazing i have an iphone 8 and i absolutely love
the photos that i get on it so i would definitely say like having super expensive camera equipment
is not a requirement for getting good content i generally use natural lighting for my photos but
i also like to experiment so using the flash can create some really cool effects and then i also
recently got philips hue bulb so sometimes i'll play with lighting my photos with different colors
i think i've gotten better at taking photos of myself i'm still extremely awkward when
other people take photos of me usually if i need someone to help me i'll ask my brother because
he is always around i trust his camera skills and i feel pretty comfortable around him
but he does complain the most about having to help me so after i shoot a batch of photos i usually
edit them all together as well to save some time usually i edit in lightroom mobile unless i shoot
them on my camera in which case i'll edit on my computer when it comes to instagram stories those
are a bit more spontaneous usually on the content calendar i do have a couple of things that i know
i need to post that day but otherwise i also try to share a little of my life or whatever it is
that i'm working on i think it's really important to develop a personal style with your instagram
stories i mean just with instagram in general but we're talking about stories now i find that
when i'm quickly tapping through stories even if a person's face isn't in them i can usually
tell whose stories they are based on how they edited them and how they formatted like the text
and whatever so it's important to experiment and figure out what you like and then kind of settle
on a signature style that becomes recognizable to your followers i used to use some apps to create
some designs for my stories like unfold or story lux now i keep it simple so i usually don't use
those apps i feel like not using them makes my stories feel a little more authentic so my style
is generally either using one of my presets or picking one of my favorite filters from
the instagram app for text i always use this typewriter font i'll pick a color from the photo
to highlight behind it or just use the automatic highlighting and then sometimes i'll add a little
glitter or a little flourish or something like that balancing your feed so my niche is about like
planning and personal development right which is definitely a lot harder to display visually
than say a fashion or a beauty focus blog so i used to try and shoot photos that were directly
related to the caption so like if the caption talked about planning maybe i would shoot a
photo of my desk and whatever tools i was using to plan or if it was about meditation
maybe a photo of myself meditating but now i'm definitely leaning towards separating the photo
from the caption because i feel like my instagram serves two different purposes or provides two
different things so number one i'm just putting together a pretty an aesthetic feed of photos that
you can look at and then number two if you want to scroll a little further there's also some helpful
planning and organization tips in the caption but like the photo can stand alone if you don't
look at the caption and i think this has made me a lot happier with my feed overall because the posts
where i tried really hard to somehow connect them to the caption they just didn't feel very creative
to me they felt a little bit like filler content speaking of filler content this might be an
unpopular opinion but i generally don't like when people post quotes on their feed like i think it's
fine for brands or like writers who post their own stuff but with the people i follow like individual
creators i feel like i would rather they not post anything rather than just posting like an
inspirational quote but that's just me so i don't know i stay away from posting quotes so because i
try to stay away from filler content that does mean i don't post as frequently as i used to i
used to try and post every single day and i think that led to a lot of mediocre content like i'm not
saying my content is great now but i do feel a lot less pressure i feel like i can create much
more creative and meaningful things if i only have to post like three to four times per week and then
finally two questions that people ask on instagram ironically how did i decide what platform to use
my blog is very visual i thought about getting on twitter but i just don't know if i have enough to
say for that platform i do have a lot of photos that i want to share though instagram is also just
where i feel most comfortable and i think a lot of my audience is on instagram so it just it made
sense and then of course a lot of people asked about how to grow on instagram i really wish i
could give more helpful advice but like getting to the first 1000 instagram followers for me
was so difficult i don't think my instagram really started seriously growing until i started my
youtube channel so maybe one thing to look at is like are you on the right platform because
i think if i just stuck to instagram and like text-based blog posts i don't think things would
have grown youtube was an avenue where i saw a lot of potential and so once i took advantage of that
then instagram kind of naturally grew as well i also think i don't have data to back this
up but i think audience engagement is pretty important so like doing challenges or sometimes
i will post a question sticker on my stories like what's something you accomplished today
and then i'll share a bunch of those and just try and make it feel like we are all in this together
and like contributing to the bliss been together i don't know if that contributes to growth but i
do think it creates a better experience for the people that do follow you and encourages them to
stick around so thank you for sticking around on my channel and watching this video best of luck
to all you instagram creators out there we're all in this together i'll see you next week bye
you