My DMs and comments are full of questions from followers worrying about parts of their Instagram profile that simply do not matter.

A perfect feed aesthetic, matching highlight covers and a ‘balanced’ following to follower ratio – all things you shouldn’t spend half as much time caring about as you do!

These are all vanity elements – things that make you look good – but if your content is rushed, pure fluff or is only being posted because your prescribed feed aesthetic says you have to post a quote that day – you’re missing the whole point.

Things you shouldn’t spend much time worrying about:

• A feed aesthetic – needing to fit a theme is holding you back from adding value to your followers. Cater to the followers you already have, who rarely look at your profile page as a whole, but spend more time looking at individual posts as they show up on their home feed. Sure, a stranger might follow you because you have a cute feed aesthetic, but it’s the individual posts and content that will make them like, share and buy
• Your username – I know you’re super witty and the queen of puns, but don’t spend too much time creating a funny username no one can remember. Just use your name if you can, or a first name and middle name if that’s taken
• Your profile picture – this can always be changed, and as I’ve said before, there’s no need to spend lots of time and money on this. Choose something professional and high res, and then get to making your content
• Your follower/following ratio – honestly so unimportant! Definitely don’t waste time following and unfollowing people, but it’s a good idea to only follow accounts you’re inspired by and can learn from
• Matching Instagram covers – nice to have, but not essential. Spend that creative energy on your next Instagram post

I know it’s tempting to focus on these aesthetics, but you can change them all later. It’s better to have an Instagram feed full of quality, consistent content, then a beautiful profile that adds no value.

TLDR: spend more time creating quality content than worrying about how things look.

I hope this helped you! If you want to learn more about Instagram marketing and how to grow your personal brand on the platform, download my 14 day step-by-step personal branding course.