- Your profile is a shop window: name, bio, link and buttons must say at first glance who you are and how to reach you.
- A consistent grid comes from steady templates (typography, palette, framing) and a rhythm that alternates formats, not from photographic perfection.
- A pace you can keep beats bursts followed by silence; then judge by messages and visits, not by reach alone.
The profile comes before the grid
People like to talk about the grid, but a visitor's eye starts higher up. It reads the profile picture, the name, the bio and the buttons first, and only then moves down to the images. This top section is a shop window and a shop sign at once: it must say straight away what you do, where, and how to reach you. A vague profile, with no link and no button, loses customers that even the finest grid will not win back.
The profile picture appears tiny, inside a circle, next to every post and every message. A detailed logo becomes illegible there; a simple mark, a monogram or a very clear photo of the place holds up better. The display name, separate from the handle that starts with @, is generally taken into account by Instagram search: writing your trade and your town there helps people find you.
- What you do, and where. Your trade, your town or neighbourhood, and what sets you apart, without a slogan: ‘Seasonal pastries, made to order’ says more than ‘Passion and indulgence’.
- What the visitor should do next. Book, order, come by: one clear invitation rather than several competing ones.
- A link that leads somewhere useful. The booking page, the menu or the enquiry form, not the generic home page of your website.
- Contact buttons. A professional account can show a category and buttons to call, send an email or get directions, and sometimes to book, depending on the services connected.
The bio accepts only a limited number of characters and a few links: this constraint forces you to choose. Reread it as a stranger would. If they cannot tell at a glance what you sell and where, the grid will be working for nothing.
The grid: formats, cropping and rhythm
Since January 2025, the profile grid no longer shows square thumbnails but vertical ones, in a 3:4 ratio (three wide by four high). A post in the 4:5 portrait format, that is 1080 × 1350 pixels, remains a safe format for the feed, but it is slightly trimmed at the sides in the grid; a square image is trimmed more. In practice, whatever you place near the edges (the start of a word, a price, the rim of a plate) may vanish from the thumbnail. Keep the essentials in the centre and always look at your grid after posting.
The grid is read in rows of three, and it is the whole that makes an impression. The visitor looks for order: the same light, the same range of colours, text placed in the same spot. They also look for variety, otherwise the eye grows tired. A good rhythm alternates the kinds of post: a photo of the place or of a gesture, an image carrying a short text, a carousel (several images in a single post, swiped one after the other), a Reel.
A rhythm rather than a chessboard
Some accounts play at the perfect chessboard, or at the giant puzzle that only makes sense as a whole. It is striking on the first day and impossible to sustain afterwards: the slightest post outside the series breaks the pattern, and each image, seen alone in the feed, no longer means anything. Let the grid breathe, too: a calm, almost empty image between two busy visuals is ma, the interval that Japanese aesthetics treats as being as important as form.
Templates, not isolated images
A consistent grid does not come from a filter laid over every photo, but from a few rules decided once and kept with every post: few typefaces, a restrained palette, recurring markers. These rules are stored in templates, ready-made layouts to fill in for an announcement, a new product, a customer review. On the day you need to post quickly, you open the right template instead of reinventing everything.
- Typography. One typeface for headlines, another for text, the same as on your website, legible at small sizes on a phone.
- The palette. A few brand colours, plus neutrals. Photos need not bend to it entirely, but backgrounds, frames and text should.
- Markers. A thin frame, a constant margin, a fixed place for the logo or for a small pictogram per theme. These repeated details make your posts recognisable before anyone reads your name.
- Photos. The place, the gestures, the team, the finished work, in their real light. Stock images are quickly spotted and suggest there is nothing particular to show at your place.
These rules are not invented on Instagram: they flow from your identity, the same one as on your shop sign and your website. If it is not settled yet, the grid will reveal it through its hesitations. We discuss this in A logo is not a brand: a social network is only one of the supports of a single system.
Taking photos without being a photographer
A recent phone is enough, provided you take care of three things. Light first: a window, from the side, rather than the ceiling light or the flash. Background next: a clear worktop, a wall, a piece of fabric, always the same ones, which become your setting. Framing last, leaving room around the subject so that the grid thumbnail cuts nothing important.
Highlights, like the aisles of a shop
A story disappears after a day, but you can keep it on your profile by adding it to a highlight. These collections appear under the bio, as small circles, each with a cover and a short name. For a visitor, they are the aisles of the shop: they go straight there for the menu, the opening hours, the prices or past work.
- Choose the aisles
Start from the questions you are asked most often. Each can become a collection: the menu, hours and directions, reviews, past work.
- Keep names short
The name appears under the circle and is cut off if it is too long. One word is usually enough: ‘Menu’, ‘Find us’, ‘Reviews’.
- Design the covers
Same background, same colour, a pictogram or an initial for each theme: seen together, the covers should form a calm line, not an assortment.
- Keep them current
Remove stories that are out of date (old opening hours, a finished offer) and add new ones as you go. An up-to-date collection is worth more than a full one.
- Watch the order
Put first what people look for first. A collection you add to generally moves to the front of the row: check the order after each addition.
The top of the profile offers another tool that is often forgotten: you can pin up to three posts above the grid. Keep that spot for what stays true for a long time: an introduction to the business, the main offer, how to book or order. A post pinned for last week's promotion sends the opposite signal to a well-kept shop window.
Reels and their covers
Reels are vertical videos in the 9:16 format, that is 1080 × 1920 pixels, like stories. They show what a photo cannot say: a gesture, a service unfolding, a before-and-after transformation. There is no need to produce a film: a few short shots, filmed vertically and held steady, are enough. A video may be watched without sound, on public transport or in a waiting room: a short on-screen text or subtitles make it understandable in silence.
In the grid, a Reel appears through its cover, cropped into a thumbnail. Instagram lets you choose that cover, either a frame taken from the video or an uploaded image, and adjust how it appears on the profile. This is where consistency is won or lost: a blurred frame, caught in the middle of a movement, spoils a whole row. So prepare a cover for each Reel in your house template, with a short title in the centre.
Alt text, for those who cannot see the image
Instagram lets you write alt text for each image, generally from the advanced settings of the post. Screen readers read it aloud to visually impaired people in place of the photo. A simple sentence is enough: what the image shows and why it is there, for example ‘fig tart on a stoneware plate, seen from above’. It is a gesture of care, invisible to most, essential to some.
A pace you can actually keep
The question always comes back: how many posts a week? There is no universal answer, and we are wary of the figures that circulate. The only rule that holds is the pace you will keep for a whole year without wearing yourself out. A modest but steady pace inspires trust; bursts followed by long silences make people wonder whether the business is still open.
A simple method
- Fixed themes. A few recurring subjects (a product, a gesture, a team member, a finished piece, practical information) spare you the blank page and give the grid its rhythm.
- Regular photo sessions. A few hours of photos and short videos, in the right light, feed several weeks of posts.
- A calendar planned ahead. Instagram and Meta's management tools let you schedule posts: prepared in a quiet moment, they free up your busy days.
- Time set aside for replies. Answering messages and comments is part of the work, and that is often where a booking is decided.
A well-kept grid is not decreed on a Sunday evening: it is kept, week after week, the way you keep a shop window.
Judging without getting lost in the numbers
A professional account gives access to statistics: reach of posts, interactions, profile activity. They are useful, as long as you do not read them as a score. For a shop, the aim is not to please the greatest number but to bring the right people to take the step. So look first at whatever resembles a future customer.
- The messages you receive, especially those asking for a price, an availability or an address.
- Taps on the bio link and on the contact buttons, which the profile activity section of the statistics generally shows.
- What people tell you at the counter. Simply ask new customers how they heard of you: it is the most reliable measure a shop has.
- The posts that prompt questions, rather than hearts alone: they reveal what your customers want to know.
Compare from one month to the next rather than from one day to the next, and at an equal posting pace. A post that reaches few people is not a failure if it led to bookings. Conversely, a video watched widely at the other end of the country will not fill your dining room. The right local account is the one followed by people in the neighbourhood.
This is how we work in our social media discipline: set the profile and the templates first, then keep the pace. Our plans include a graphic redesign of your social networks (posts, highlight covers and reusable templates), described on the pricing page. The rest, the regularity and the right tone of voice, belongs to the business itself.
What you can do this week
Tick as you go: nothing is saved, it is simply a reminder.
Founder and director of Digital Air Media, a digital creation house opened in Paris in 2017. He writes here what the house applies to its own pages before offering it to others.