It was surprising to hear this during a conversation with a friend the other day.
“I don’t see the point of an Instagram grid/profile design because I never look at someone’s profile”.
If you happen to agree with this sentiment, perhaps what I’m sharing today might give you a different perspective.
First of all, as marketers, our job is to understand how our ideal clients and audience think and behave. What we might not consider doing ourselves could be precisely what our clients might just be quite eager to do.
Rather than trying to convince you with some narrative of the importance of grid design — reasons why they are critical in brand marketing in my opinion — I’ll share some numbers.
I remember the stats from one of my old posts (probably with a photo of me) showing 1250 or so views and, interestingly, about 50 of those people went on to check out my profile. Most of those people, presumably, didn’t know who I was and, hence, wanted to check me out. It’s common to get a bunch of people who read a post and then go on to view the profile. The same thing will be happening with some of your posts if not all of them.
Once people land on my profile, the first impression they get is (largely) from my IG grid design. Given the way many people perform searches in Social Media channels, having a branded and compelling IG grid is no different from having a great looking website.
Of course, a good looking Instagram grid alone will not guarantee anything. But it is one of the pieces of your brand building puzzle that you need to look after. The last thing we want is one major social media channel being misaligned from all other elements in our marketing mix.
If we’re here to make change happen for the people we seek to serve, it pays to look at our Instagram grid and see if it matches our brand message and what we stand for.
In my next dispatch, I’ll share my thoughts on social media post popularity vs. usefulness.
Until then stay safe.
