5 Things We Can Learn From Teens on Instagram

Teenagers make up one of the most prodigious users of Instagram, and we grown-ups wouldn’t be amiss to take a few notes from them. I’m not kidding. with a plethora of photo-editing apps and options and their fingertips, they’ve lifted Instagramming into an art form on its own, their galleries an array of manicured, curated images that could as well serve as a portfolio for their coming years in the career market. Long story short, they understand how much an image communicates, and how it best represents themselves as a band.

So grab your notebooks, We’re about to drop some fresh ‘gramming knowledge.

1) Live by an aesthetic.

One of the subtler yet most important things that first hit you when looking at a person’s Instagram wall is a clean, consistent vibe. In this case, the whole need not be greater than the sum of its parts, but seeing your wall of images have a unifying color palette and tone with a single image can make your Instagram profile sing.You can achieve this by going either with #nofilter, or developing a favorite filter and sticking to it.

Here are a couple of excellent examples:

This instagrammer leans more towards relaxed colors and low-key tones. He does this sticking to VSCO‘s F2 filter.

On the other hand, this instagrammer shows a keeness of r vibrant colors and neatly-framed images. — On the other hand, this instagrammer shows a keenness of r vibrant colors and neatly-framed images.

2) Avoid lengthy text posts on the images.

A picture is worth a thousand words — let your shots do the talking for you. While images super-imposed with inspirational quotes are dime-a-dozen on Facebook, they have no place on an image-driven site like Instagram. the words may be meaningful, true, but may also ruin the aesthetic and beauty of the picture, and may turn into more of a bother than a supplement. Think of texts as background noise to a scene or an image. You wouldn’t want someone to drone on and on while you try to enjoy a glorious sunset, would you?

If you absolutely must key in a whole paragraph explaining how moving that sunset was, do so very, very, sparingly, and be thoughtful as to why it needs a whole paragraph.

3) Pace yourself when posting.

Instagramming is a lot like blogging — while your followers generally look forward to your posts, if you post too many things one after the other, your followers end up scrolling through all these pictures, and only your pictures. this could tempt your followers to unfollow, so have a care: you may either opt to post a picture every hour or so, or curate your photos and post only the most striking, relevant images out of the set. Remember — let your images do the talking. On the other hand, post too seldom, and your follows may end up wondering where on earth you may be, think you’ve deleted Instagram, and unfollow you.

4) Use collages thoughtfully.

Apps like Photogrid and Picstitch can bring together in a set of images to create a narrative, but avoid cramming too many images into a single frame. Again, curate your images and be selective with arranging your collages. Too many images can end up making the collage look more chaotic than creative, and can project this same idea onto your wall. A good way to use collages is to take composition into consideration.

Repetition of the same clean shot gives the image its own unique aesthetic, and presents a panorama shot in a refreshing way. You may elect to apply the same idea to shots of different people against the same background, action shots in unified color palettes, and so on.

5) One hashtag is enough. Seriously.

Gone are the days when having a mind-boggling string of hashtags was all the comedy it needed. Having too many hashtags to one post can come off as a bit too desperate for attention. One or two hashtags at most is enough; the brevity and with you put into your posts shows your followers you know what you’re about. Go with a hashtag that encapsulates the essence of your image, and it will serve as apt commentary.