Instagram Crash Course: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6
10 tips to optimize your Instagram account
Click here to download this page as a .pdf for you to keep: Instragram Cheat Sheet v2.pdf
P.S I am using this as my main account now @outstandinghealth – I explain more in the course about this.
2. Username
Use a strong and easy to remember username, no underscores or numbers. If the account is about you or you are a sole entrepreneur who uses your name in your business, then use your name. I use mine.
3. Privacy Setting
Never ever set your profile to private if you want to reach followers or customers. It is okay to start a private profile to make your profile nice and add pictures before you start. But DO NOT keep your profile a secret to potential followers and customers.
4. How to start
Start your account with 9-10 pictures. Make them look clean and smooth and bring a nice feel to them. Make sure they represent your brand. People evaluate your 2 last rows for business purposes. The examples below gives a good branding for their businesses. They are not multi passionate entrepreneurs but have one niche.
5. Photography
You need good photos in order to stand out, but you do not need to be a professional photographer. You can use your smart phone, Iphone 6 (s), and other new smart phones have really good cameras. The trick is to use good light and mostly light backgrounds. Whitespace and white backgrounds always do the trick! Practice and more practice you will make you better at it. Tip: Do not take selfies with the toilet or toilet paper or similar in the background. Just don’t! Backgrounds are everything. (Toilet rolls aren’t ;) ).

5. Play with depth
Depth: The obvious use is to have a foreground subject close to the camera (like a face) and a little off to one side, with something in the distance filling the remainder of the frame and telling a story. (Like walking off the stage after a workshop with the next speaker behind me)
A more unusual example is this picture of a, at first, lonely Michael Jackson imitator on the street – with a huge crowd reflecting in the window behind him. (The MJ imitator is the foreground close to the camera, the crowd is in the inverted distance)

6. Symmetry is sexy!
7. Diagonal lines are more exciting to look at than straight lines
Sometimes tilting the camera makes for more interesting photos – usually it is better to keep the camera / phone straight but move around and find a spot to take a picture where the subject and background form diagonal lines.