What makes Instagram such a powerful marketing tool? There is no one single answer to this question, so let’s see some of the key stats:

• With one billion users, Instagram is now the sixth most popular social network in the world.
• There are more than 25 million business profiles on this platform.
• 80% of users follow at least one business account on Instagram.
• 60% of Instagram users discover new products on the platform.

While all these stats really sound amazing, the truth is you have to do your best in order to stand out from the crowd of competitors and millions of posts published every day. It takes a perfect photo to grab the attention of the target audience, so you better make sure to use state of the art content creation techniques.

In this post, we will show you 10 Instagram photo editing tips for business owners. Let’s take a look!

• Don’t Use Instagram to Shoot Images

The number one rule of Instagram marketing is not to use the platform’s native camera app to shoot images. Why not? The reason is simple – smartphone cameras are much better, not to mention professional cameras.

An Instagram-powered camera doesn’t give you the possibility to zoom in or out and it also creates square-shaped photos only. Besides that, you don’t have the option of using the so-called High Dynamic Range feature. In other words, it is always better to shoot your own photo and use Instagram for publishing only.

• Think about the Colors

Colors are the essence of a photo, so you have to be clever and use the most appropriate schemes that suit the style of your brand. Therefore, the first thing you need to think about is the overall branding strategy because you do want to choose colors accordingly.

For instance, take a look at Coca Cola’s Instagram account. The brand is known for its passionate red-focused color palette, so it’s completely natural to see this color dominating Coca Cola’s newsfeed. You should follow the same pattern and concentrate on colors that perfectly correspond with the brand image.

• Mind the Composition

A business owner doesn’t have to be a professional photographer, but you should definitely try to follow the basic rules of image composition. Mark Jacobson, a graphic designer at the best essay writing service, says you should always identify your point of interest and let all the other elements revolve around this subject: “Besides that, do your best to find the right point of view and keep the ideal symmetry of the composition.”

• Add Captions to Support Photos

This may not be the standard photo-editing advice, but it is very important to support Instagram content with captions. This doesn’t only make the image more relevant but also explains the story of your brand and invites fans to engage.

A great example comes from Nike, one of the most popular sports brands globally. They always support images with textual content to send a powerful message to their followers. If you don’t have time or don’t want to bother with caption writing, you can consult with content creation professionals at SuperiorPapers review or BestEssays review.

• Play with Filters

Another important task is to select the right filter for your Instagram theme. The goal is, of course, to make a perfect combination of filter and images. The main advice is to align styles and choose similar colors in order to unify your business page.

One thing you need to remember is to stick to just one filter because you don’t want to ruin the overall appearance of the theme. A nice example comes from Nadia Rachel who keeps her lifestyle account simple and consistent.

• Give Photos a Retro Look

If you want to highlight the brand’s traditional and exclusiveness, then you could give photos a retro look. This is a great way to distinguish your products from newer brands and show the audience that years/decades of experience are already behind you.

You can do it using grainy or VHS filters. The prequel is one of the finest image editors you can find online, so feel free to test it and find stylish visual effects for your Instagram account.

• Use the Collage Technique

Collage images are not a novelty on Instagram, but they are becoming even more popular these days. The collage technique allows you to mix different photos and form a beautiful set of brand-focused images. Liza Chloe often uses this tactic to build her self-brand. Namely, it’s an easy way to display multiple images while forming a completely meaningful content bundle. Therefore, you just need a single theme and you are ready to shoot as many photos as you like.

• Join the No Filter Challenge

This tip may come as a surprise to most marketers, but sometimes it’s totally fine to publish a photo without a single editing move. It makes the content look more casual and natural, thus winning over the audience with its sheer simplicity.

Take a look at the Accidental Influencer’s Instagram profile for a moment. You don’t have to be an experienced Instagrammer to realize that she avoids special photo treatments, filters, effects, and so on. In the world where pretty much everything looks artificial, the “no filter” technique might as well be your ticket to success. 

• Remember Black & White?

If you want to design a stylish and classy Instagram content, perhaps you should think about the good old black-and-white combination. We don’t want to call it a trend because it really isn’t – the two colors are always trendy and make a wonderful combination for serious and authoritative brands.

• Use the Right Editing Tools

This goes without saying, but you can’t hope to run successful Instagram campaigns without proper photo editing tools. There are so many options to choose from, but we can point out some of the best apps:

• Snapseed: The tool comes with all the professional editing features you’ll ever need.
• Enlight: If you want to create photos with a little bit of artistic touch, don’t skip Enlight.
• Mextures: It comes with hundreds of textures and dozens of image editing presets.
• Facetune: In case you show a lot of real people in your photos, Facetune will help you to create perfect portraits and selfies.

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Conclusion

Instagram can be a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal, but only if you are able to create high-quality photos consistently. This goal is impossible to reach without knowing the latest Instagram tools and trends, which is why we showed you 10 photo editing tips for business professionals. Keep our suggestions in mind and make sure to test them – they could take your Instagram marketing performance to the whole new level!

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