Does social media make your head spin and the mere thought of posting—let alone actually taking the time to curate your feed—give you instant anxiety? Do you often feel like you’re just posting just to post, but not seeing any results or feeling satisfied with how your feed looks? You’re not alone. I’ve definitely felt that way before and I’d be lying if I said that same dreadful feeling doesn’t creep up on me sometimes when I feel like I’m falling off my game. Nonetheless, social media is something you have to get a grasp on if you want to run a modern, thriving business without solely depending on word of mouth + referrals.

The most common questions I receive tend to circle around social media and content creation. For a while I would tell people I’m just showing up and posting what I feel like and that I don’t really know what I’m doing until the day it dawned on me that I do. While I always post from a place of authenticity, everything I share to my feed is created with the bigger picture of my business + my audiences interests at top of mind.

I want to pause and make a note that you do not need a perfectly, overly curated Instagram feed to succeed as a business owner—but it sure can help to establish your social presence with purpose when trying to grow your business + your following.

Curating your feed goes far beyond just making it “pretty” and this post is going explain the exact mindset you’ll need to get started. To me, curating your feed means you’re creating content with intention, posting with strategy, and using your platform as an efficient marketing tool, rather than just a photo album. Even more importantly, a curated feed will attract people that get your vision and help you showcase that you take your brand + your business seriously. Let’s be real, first impressions matter and in this day & age, they tend to happen on Instagram.

Here are the 3 elements of an Instagram feed that’s curated to convert—not just look pretty.

01. Consistency

Like with anything else we want to succeed at in life—consistency will always be key. I’ve learned the hard way that the Instagram algorithm definitely favors consistency as well. If you want to start curating your feed, you’re going to need to commit to a level of consistency, otherwise you’re just going to look and feel like you’re all over the place.

Aesthetics-wise, yes it can help to incorporate your brand colors into your imagery when you can. No, you don’t need to post photos that strictly contain the hues within your color palette, but if color is a huge part of what makes your brand unique, incorporating pops here and there into each photo will allow your brand style to shine through effortlessly & organically.

My brand palette consists of mauve, pinks, and neutrals — colors that you’ll consistently see on my feed as well. The broader your color palette, the more flexible you can be with your imagery. And guess what? If you don’t want to commit to posting within your brand’s color family, you don’t have to. This is your world and the way you choose to curate it is 100% up to you. If colors feel too restrictive, then make sure you’re committed to utilizing the same filters and similar lighting to create a sense of cohesion within your imagery.

Pro-Tip: Struggle with creating consistent, high-quality content? Schedule a photoshoot with a photographer that vibes with your brand style at least 2-3 times per year. This way you won’t have to worry about taking photos on your own every other day and you’ll be stocked up on content that will allow you to post consistently + look 100x more legit.

02. Variety

I can’t stress this enough — variety of content is SO essential when it comes to curating your feed! A feed full of selfies or product shots gets boring and predictable quick. The key to creating variety is using your feed to tell a story. You want your content to be so multi-faceted that it allows you to build real depth + connection with your brand and your target audience.

The variety of content you create really depends on you and the audience you want to reach. What will feel authentic to you and also resonate with them? When I decided to niche within the beauty industry, I started to shift my content to reflect my intentions. That meant posting content that would be of value and interest to the beauty community specifically—like skin care products and entrepreneurial lifestyle tips that beauty boss babes could relate to, rather than just being about all branding, all the time.

So, before you get ready to post that 7th client photo in a row, stop and think about how you can break things up with more thoughtful content that shows a more personal side of your business — like a peek into your workspace, relatable quotes, style inspo, lifestyle imagery, etc.

Pro-Tip: Take the stress out of posting by planning your content ahead. I use apps like Planoly to arrange the photos in my grid and I add the captions when it’s time to post. This not only helps me curate my feed on an aesthetic level, but also ensures I have a variety of content ready to go as well.

03. Value

One of the most common mistakes I see business owners make on social media is falling flat when it comes to the caption area of their posts. Either they’re using their captions to sell, sell, sell or posting mindless content that no one really understands the purpose of (cue image stolen from Pinterest, reposted with song lyric in the caption *face palm).

Think of your imagery as the *shiny thing* to capture your audiences attention and stop them in their scrolling tracks, then the caption area is the place where you can build connection to invite your followers to stay around awhile.

Point blank period, if you want to build a following that is not only captivated by you, but trusts you—you have to infuse value into the content you’re putting out in the world.

One way that I create content with value is simply by thinking back to the most common questions that I receive (kinda like how this blog post came about). This means I have to really listen to my audience and my clients to pinpoint their biggest pain-points and establish the ways that I can help them. For instance, if you’re a makeup artist, you may get a lot of questions about your favorite products or brushes you use. You can then take your FAQ as inspiration for the content you’ll create to establish your expertise and build value for your following.

When I work on social media strategies with my clients, I always like to remind them that there is no such thing as giving away too much value. I’ve heard so many people say they’re worried about giving away too much to the point that people won’t even need to work with them, but I can promise you that will never be the case.

Remember this: you can give someone all the moves from your playbook and they can use it as they please, but no one will ever be able to do what you do, exactly like you do (unless we’re talking about something more proprietary like the recipe for the Krabby Patty or secret sauce to your signature products — that you may want to keep under wraps, *wink wink).

You can build value for your audience by creating content that enables you to share real moments, stories, and inspiration. You are such a wealth of knowledge and if you can use your platform to teach people something they may not have known before, you give them a reason to stick around. Creating content with value also falls under the topic above of having variety, so make sure there’s a balance with the value you’re giving above all and you’ll find that the trust you’re building will enable sales to happen so much more organically.

Pro-Tip: Don’t shy away from posting photos of yourself or your team. Not only does this help people feel connected to you and your brand, you’ll probably find that these types of posts will get the most engagement as well!

Now that I’ve equipped you with the mindset you need to have to curate your feed, I also wanted to give you a few examples of beautifully curated feeds for the visual learners out there: