It’s sad but true
Posting a pretty picture just isn’t enough anymore to grow your Instagram following
Here are some tricks to make your food photos more engaging and more likely to be found by Insta users (i.e. your new followers!)
Take your photos in natural light
There is really no substitute for natural light
I always say – if it’s a choice between taking a photo in direct light or at night/ morning with a lamp, it’s better to not take the photo at all
Getting as close to a window is best – anything glossy, oiling, or with any kind of liquid will really pop – which is eye-catching!
Not too close & not too far
You want people to be able to EASILY understand what they’re looking at
Anything too close, or too far, is difficult to see
And since people are bombarded with photos on Insta, they’re likely to just breeze past your photo without a second look
Show your ingredients
(Sadly) we are becoming an increasingly lazy society (myself included!!)
But that means we all just have to create content according to that fact
Showing your ingredients and/ or cooking process is an easy way attract new followers
I’ve found that people LOVE if I show my ingredients AND the final product
That is – those types of posts end up going VIRAL!
Editing
Editing my photos takes less than 60 seconds
But it is CRITICAL to the photos’ success!
Here are the 5 simple steps I take (using the app VSCO):
Crop
Brighten
Add contrast
Add saturation
Sharpen
Include an element of YOU
Gone are the days of $1000 platters of F&V perfectly arranged
What’s popular now is people seeing what you’re REALLY eating!
Add an ingredient that “catches the light”
For whatever reason, photos that include an element that reflects the light do really well
Here are some examples
Splashes of oil
Any wet fruit or veg
An egg yolk – e.g. of a fried egg
Salad dressing
Guacamole
Liquidy salsas
FULL over sparse
If you have a big plate with a little rice cake on it, that doesn’t look very appetizing right?
People want to be told they can eat as MUCH food as they want – in LARGE portions!
These types of FULL plates do really well
Rainbows
Think of the color wheel & opposite colors
For example, if you’re photographing a salad (green), can you add some red in there?
If you’re photographing some cake (yellow) can you add some blueberry glaze (purple)
Again, not sure of the reasoning behind this, but I do see that it does well!
There are MANY MORE tidbits I’d love to share with you!
I would LOVE for you to check out my Beat the Algorithm course where I’ll walk you through, step by step, how to grow your Insta too –
But first, make sure you get my Instagram growth cheat sheet (FREE) so you can jumpstart your success NOW!
