We make no secret of the fact that we at 91 Magazine are hooked on Instagram. It’s one of our key sources of inspiration, a way in which we make connections and even discover potential content for the magazine. Each issue we showcase five of our favourite accounts in our Instagram Edit and, if you follow us on Instagram, you’ll know that we’re posting fresh content daily, from styled flatlays to behind the scenes snippets. We also host regular hashtag projects over on IG- remember that you can still tag your tea/coffee themed shots to #91magazine_myquietcuppa for a chance to have your image featured in the next print issue of the magazine.
So naturally, given our insta-obsession, we were fascinated to read Capture Your Style, the tell-all Instagram guide from Aimee Song (aka @songofstyle), a superstar US Instagrammer with 4.4 million followers and counting.
Capture Your Style promises to help you to’transform your Instagram images, Showcase your Life and Build the Ultimate Platform’. The book is divided into five sections that cover:
– The Ins & Outs of Instagram
– Capture your Style
-Become a Storyteller
-Find & Grow Your Audience
– Instagold
If you are an Instagram beginner, or are unsure about the details of how the platform works, in ‘The Ins & Outs of Instagram’, Aimee explains in clear, easy-to-understand steps how to get started, from choosing a username to using the camera on your smartphone. She walks the reader through the entire process, throwing in top tips along the way.
The section on ‘Capturing your Style’ is essential reading for anyone who posts outfit shots, selfies or even portraits. There are plenty of ideas on how to put together an outfit shot, with interesting insights into how to use backgrounds, juxtapositions and angles to best effect.
‘Become a Storyteller’ covers Aimee’s thoughts on how best to shoot food, travel, interiors and flatlays, with tips on how to balance your grid (for example, Aimee suggests thinking about your images in groups of twelve) and ideas for lighting and ways to ensure that your images are perfectly straight.
‘Find & Grow Your Audience’ covers practicalities such as commenting, hash tagging, mentions, and timing your images to best effect, whilst “Insta Gold’ touches on the ways in which Instagram can be used to support and grow your business and career.
More experienced Instagrammers may find that some of the content is already familiar to them and that some advice is rather subjective. For example, Aimee states categorically that you should use a maximum of five hashtags per post, whereas we know that 91 contributor and Instagram Coach Sara Tasker advises that using anything up to the full quota of 30 can work well.
Nevertheless, if you’re new to Instagram, or if you are a fashion blogger (or a fan of outfit shots!), then this book could prove invaluable. Indeed, anyone with an interest in Instagram will find plenty of inspiration within its pages.
Capture Your Style by Aimee Song is published by Abrams Image (£11.99)
All images in this post by Laura Pashby.
