How much time do you spend perfecting an Instagram grid, whether yours or your client’s? From colors specific for your brand to pictures that are understandable only when we look at the complete grid – do you think it’s all worth it? Sure, a human eye always enjoys a pretty sight, in everything from everyday life to social media, but are there any numbers that can confirm the importance of an Instagram grid? Can those numbers help us sleep better at night, knowing that our followers appreciate our effort? I couldn’t find any such numbers, only speculations, so I did a little research myself and conducted a survey of 501 (did someone’s OCD just kick in?) person in Croatia and I’m sharing results with you.
To follow or not to follow?
It’s no surprise that most of my survey participants (72% or 362 people) are following a brand or an influencer on Instagram. Reasons behind it are mostly inspirational, motivational and creative input they get from such profiles, alongside useful product information and education in the area they are interested in. 28% that doesn’t follow a brand on Instagram might not even be aware that the posts they like are actually sponsored by a brand or an influencer.
What will be very important to brand owners is whether customers continue to follow the brand after they buy their product or use their service. Well, you can relax – 76.6% of respondents say they continue to follow.
Is it really a necessary inGRIDient?
Now we are getting to the part we are all here for – the grid. Does it really matter?
The picture below was shown to survey participants and they were asked about the importance of a perfect grid and whether it was a deciding factor in following a brand or an influencer. As you can see on the graph, a fair share of 65,5% answered that the grid doesn’t affect their decision to follow a profile at all. Only 4,2% deemed a perfect grid absolutely necessary.
The next thing I wanted to find out – is there a higher possibility that they will follow a brand or an influencer on Instagram if they have a perfectly organised Instagram grid like it was shown below. 74,3% of respondents said that there is no correlation. We can presume that the followers don’t just sign up or follow for good looks and are much more interested in quality content that is both interesting and useful.
Here is a question for a person behind a brand or an influencer profile – will you publish a post that makes sense only when you look at the entire grid? I’m talking about those big pictures divided into several posts. Personally, I’m not a fan. Why? There are few reasons:
- You can’t be spontaneous or publish something unexpected. If your Instagram grid needs a white square to stay perfect, then it gets a white square;
- You have to carefully plan your every move and not all brands are about planning;
- Sometimes individual posts that make sense in the grid don’t make sense on their own;
- Posting only one photo messes up all your work for a few hours and your grid goes from fabulous to ridiculous.
All that combined and you may face lower engagement because your followers don’t understand some of your posts.
According to a survey, 47,1% respondents just skip them and don’t pay much attention. Only 18,6% respondents get interested enough to visit the profile so they can see the whole picture. You decide for yourself if it’s worth it.
As for the final question, I wanted to know how often respondents visit the profile and look at the grid once they follow a brand or an influencer. Solid 42,1% never visits, 49,3% visits very rarely and only 8,6% visits often. There you have it!
Should the grid go off-the-grid?
Results pretty obviously show a perfect Instagram grid is neither a priority nor an interest for most followers. Have fun with your grid of course, make it as pretty as you wish, but don’t neglect quality content that is far more important to your customers and followers. Even though 501 people can’t represent millions that spend every minute on social media, I hope this survey gave you some answers and helped you in your work as much as it helped in mine 😉