Instagram carousels are here to stay. They seem to be the new norm for successful brands. Whether it's a content marketing strategy or a way of making sure your brand stays relevant, brands like Airbnb and Converse have found unique ways to engage their target audience with the help of creative carousel posts.

That's why we took it upon ourselves to identify trends and tell you how you can learn and create your very own Instagram carousel posts!

What is an Instagram carousel post?

An Instagram carousel is a post where you can upload up to 10 images or videos altogether. People can see each one by clicking or swiping (generally to the left side). Your followers can interact with the carousel just like with any other post. They can like, comment, share, and tag.

A study of around 22 million Instagram posts revealed that carousel posts were the most engaging. Plus, carousels with 10 slides had the highest engagement rate.

Instagram carousels enable you to share more in-depth content. With this type of post, you don't have to choose between images or videos. You can combine both and tell a better story.

10 Ideas to get your Instagram carousel posts seen – and shared!

You can create different carousels depending on how you want to engage your followers. If you are selling a new product, then you'll want to add more angles, details, or color options for your clients to choose from. You can do precisely that with a single Instagram carousel post.

Sounds useful, huh?

Let's get more ideas on how to adapt carousel posts to different purposes.

1. Don't be shy! Share your brand story

Use Instagram carousel posts to share your brand's milestones. Post pictures or videos from your journey.

You can use this type of narrative to connect with your audience. It's an excellent way to introduce new team members and present your brand or business in an approachable, more human way.

Pro tip: The "cover photo" from your carousel post is the one visible on your feed. Keep that in mind for your Instagram aesthetic.

2. Get the word out with user-generated content

User-generated content (UGC) is any form of content created by individuals published on a social network. UGC can be similar to peer-to-peer recommendations or user reviews. You can take advantage of these types of carousel posts to encourage your community to create content for the possibility of being featured on your account.

3. Post an event recap

We know your event was incredible, and of course, it's worth sharing! But you don't want to spam everyone with too many posts about the same thing. With a carousel post, you can recreate the atmosphere of your past event, whether in-person or online and invite other people to join the next one.

You can mix pictures with several videos to help people feel they're attending the event again and build excitement.

4. Show them the details

Give your followers a closer look without the need of having to zoom in. Include close-up shots to highlight specific details. For these carousel posts, our recommendation is to use high-quality content.

This style is commonly used for fashion, tech products, and travel accounts.

5. Share the process and the final result

Instagram carousels help you present changes in a visual way. Carousel posts of a before and after process spark curiosity and make people want to see the final result. Looking at transformations is always satisfying!

You don't have to use the ten slides every time you post an Instagram carousel. If you're sharing something quick, then you can adapt it to a minimum of two slides.

See this example from Elina Cecilia Giglio, sharing her illustration process with two slides.

6. Adapt your educational content for Instagram

You can always share a step-by-step process or how-to posts in an eye-catching way—present data or statistics using customizable illustrations. Adding doodles, shapes, and color to your information transforms the way you engage your followers.

Instagram carousel posts are more appealing than a long caption explaining the post. Don't forget that we want people to swipe and look at the whole post, not just scroll down.

Check out this example of how we use carousel posts for our educational content.

7. Start a conversation with social media mentions

If people are sharing their reviews with a happy customer at the end, that's good news! Sharing customer reviews or social media mentions in your Instagram account increases your credibility and exposes the quality of your product or service.

Engage your followers not only by adding your reviews on your website but on Instagram as well. Consider tagging the users' accounts, thank them and give proper credit to those who shared their thoughts.

8. Select your best content

Instagram carousel posts help you break up content and transform long videos into shorter stories. Cut your video into sections and make some edits to get a better result.

Instagram is a very visual social network. Users are bombarded with content all the time, so you're competing with many videos, pictures, GIFs, and more accounts. So the way to stand out is not always to create tons of posts but to create quality posts.

9. Encourage your users to interact with your brand

Add a call to action to involve your followers and invite them to participate. Carousel posts can be helpful to present options with each slide and increase interactions. You can ask your followers to select one of the options, submit answers, or vote in a contest.

10. Appeal to emotions

In the end, this is part of all the previous ideas. Connect with the emotions of your followers through compelling and creative content. To captivate your audience, you have to create engaging stories of your product, service, your brand, or whatever topic you want to share.

Use Instagram carousel posts to provide that sense of disclosure and achievement in each swipe. When people feel strong emotions, they tend to share that content. People will share your posts if they find them useful, especially if they feel happy or relate to your content.

Examples of brands using illustrations on Instagram posts

Incorporating illustrations into your designs is another way of creating engaging posts for your audience. Doodles can be a complementary asset that boosts your content.

These are five examples of top brands using illustrations nowadays:

1. Dove

Dove is a personal care brand that promotes the acceptance of the natural body and self-love initiatives through its products.

In their social media accounts, Dove uses illustrations to create a simple yet colorful feed. For Dove, illustrations are a tool to present informative content and statistics from their research studies and showcase cultural diversity through colors.

2. Converse

Converse needs no introduction. They've positioned themselves as an authentic brand for dreamers, makers, and creative people. Converse adds illustrations to their social media posts from collaborations with artists, partnerships, or sometimes, even from their followers!

3. Lavazza

Lavazza is an Italian coffee brand with a global presence. They've found a way to use their Instagram feed as a gallery of illustrations, architecture, portraits, and of course, coffee-related content.

The latest art project from Lavazza, "The New Humanity," led to an Instagram feed full of original contributions from different artists, and the truth is we love it!

4. SuperHi

SuperHi is an online education platform founded in 2015. They teach code, design, and project management skills. The design of SuperHi in their Instagram account is an example of a brand that walks the talk. If you want to teach about creative and helpful designs, make sure you show it!

SuperHi shares different types of posts with educational content and illustrations from their students as well.

5. Samsung

Samsung has a dynamic style that's is constantly innovating. Their designs are created based on a deep empathy for people. Their Instagram account displays a modern feed with illustrations and icons that help engage their audiences.

Check out this post from the #StrongerTogether Challenge.

These big brands were able to catch people’s attention with their creative illustrations and now have become more widely known!

Note: If you want to dig deeper, here's everything you need to know about illustration systems.

Let's get creative! There are no rules

Remember, there's no magic formula for social media posts. You can always explore different styles and combinations to improve engagement with your audience.

Plan to have a structure on your feed, but be flexible and always keep some slots for ongoing trends and updates. Follow @Blushdesignapp for inspiration and tips!

It's your turn to upload images or videos for your next Instagram carousel post. Add some hashtags, and share your ideas with the world!

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