Making the best of your Instagram pictures

Following on from our introductory look at Instagram as a great social media option for jewellery makers we have put together some tips for ensuring your account looks as good as possible.

Having fabulous pictures of your work is important whatever ways you use to share your work and sell your pieces, so it is worth checking out our previous photography posts. But because Instagram is all about the images, picture quality is essential here.

Post the best images you can

Yes, it is possible to take a quick snap on your phone and post it to Instagram. This is great for workshop shots or a post to let people know you are setting up at a fair or market but not so good for shots of finished pieces.

For pictures of your finished work, you want to think in the same way as you would for your website or a flier. Use high resolution, well-lit pictures with neutral backgrounds or on models if that’s your preference. And follow these steps so that you can add them to Instagram on your phone or tablet:

• Create Instagram copies of these high quality images, cropping them so that they will look good in a post.
• Save the copies to a folder in a cloud service such as Google Drive, Apple iCloud or Dropbox so you can access them on your phone or tablet
• Go to the folder on your device and export the picture you want to Instagram where you can post your image and message.

This may seem like a complicated process at first but you will soon get used to it and it will ensure you have as good and eye-catching images as possible.

Filters

When you add a picture to Instagram you are given a wide range of filters to apply to your picture. Each of these changes the look of your image by adding a colour tint, increasing or decreasing the saturation of the colours, etc.

When you start using Instagram, it is important to look at what changes each filter makes to your images and choose what works for your style of work.

It is important to be consistent and use the same filters each time. It may be that you think one filter is good for jewellery pictures and a different one for behind the scenes/making shots – in that case make a note of what these are and always use the behind the scenes filter of those shots and the finished piece one for your products. This will make you feed look smart and establish a visual style that will help people spot your posts.

Behind the scenes shots

A great way of telling your jewellery story is to post shots of the process of making your jewellery. These could be quick working shots but you could also think of taking some still life type images of sketches, tools and materials arranged in your workspace.

Think about what might interest people but also images that shoe the work and time that goes into a handmade piece.

Inspiration collages

Another story telling technique that appeals to Instagram users is sharing images of what inspire your work.

These could be individual images or you could use a collage making app like PicMonkey to combine a picture of a finished piece with some of the images that inspired you.

Learn from others

And finally, one way to help you work out your Instagram style is to spend time looking at other people’s posts. Think about what type of images catch your eye and which are getting lots of likes. This will help you decide what is important for you to do to attract the followers your need.

Please follow London Jewellery School on the app – then we can follow you and see your work.