Text and context on Instagram

When it comes to communication, the various parts of a message are often clearly separated: on one side the text, on the other images/graphics/videos, in another drawer the moment in which the person who communicates is and in another still the world of whoever receives that piece of communication.

Yet things are not that simple and today we are going to address the relationship between text and context on Instagram. That said, it seems to mean nothing, so let's start from defining the concept of context and we do it with the definition that Annamaria Testa gives it in Farsi Capire .

The context is what begins where what we have decided to consider "text" ends

So inside the context there are a lot of things, or rather the word context includes many different aspects. Let's see which ones apply best to Instagram.

Here we have 3 main context areas:

Your context

I say it all the time, but it is still necessary to insist: the professional you is one with the extra-work you. For a professional, a craftsman, a trader, it is unthinkable to separate the personality from the brand.

This is why, for example, I speak of personality archetypes and not of brand archetypes when I create strategies for my clients: because one account is a corporate brand for which a completely different positioning can be decided at the table from the personalities who work for the brand itself, but being able to separate one's identity from that of one's work is quite different when we deal with the communication of an entrepreneur who puts all his soul, his dreams and his energies at the service of his project.

And that's why your life context, understood as events, relationships, emotions, is very important when we communicate.

If this is true in general, it is even more true on Instagram where a possible disconnect between what we put online and how we feel emerges on several levels: that of words (trust me, if you are in a bad mood or tired, it immediately transpires from the words you write) , that of images (and here too remember that you are sad you will often take sad photos) and that of videos.

When I talk about videos I'm also talking about video stories: we all think they don't have too much impact since they disappear after 24 hours, but a video says a lot about you and makes you very transparent, so here too the context matters a lot.

TIP 1

Write your texts and take your photos when you are in a positive mood, when work brings you joy and you feel you can convey enthusiasm to your audience.

And if you want to make stories avoid the moments when you would give up everything to open a Tiki Bar in the Seychelles, otherwise you will lose credibility.

The context of the audience

On Instagram, like any other channel, you need to know who you're dealing with. In short, you need to know your audience.

This means that you have to know specifically who follows you, know their way of thinking, what they do day by day, their duties, their passions. You have to understand what their personal context is and their mental patterns in order to then be able to identify their needs not only in terms of products and services that you can offer, but also of useful content to the people who follow you who will thus understand how much you can help them.

But in addition to your specific audience, there are the fashions, the rituals, the habits of what is in all respects a social tribe: Instagram users (but also the sub-tribe you belong to).

Here you have to make a choice: do you want to conform to the rituals of the tribe to be accepted and follow the rhythms of the public or detach yourself from it to differentiate yourself?

For example, if I read again "Say you're at ... without telling me you're at ..." or similar stuff, I think I could scream. And I seriously have to rein in the hand stroking the machete every time someone in a reel snaps their fingers for a word to appear. That's why I never do.

TIP 2

Watch out for the photocopy effect when you decide to follow the fashions of the moment: the photocopy effect is always lurking and your personality will be crushed.

The context of the medium

If context is everything that isn't text, the images we post on Instagram are undoubtedly the context par excellence of any content you post online.

I won't go into the merit of "what type of image works best on Instagram" because I think it is, to put it in French, absolute bullshit, but there is certainly a reasoning that is worth making, namely if you are part of the #teamconsistency or of the #teamdissonance.

#TEAMCOHERENCE is the one to which I belong: the images must have relevance to the text that accompanies them in order to create a logical continuum in which the image reinforces the concept expressed by the caption allowing the reader to recall it more easily, above all in the presence of other similar images.

#TEAMDISSONANCE is said to be the one of those who are more linked to the style of the image (palette, filter, overall profile coherence) rather than to the conceptual continuum. This team includes, for example, all the people who alternate selfies with other types of images (for example a landscape) but who in the combined text talk about themes not strictly related to themselves.

As always there is no right and wrong, they are simply choices you have to make and which, most of the time, come naturally because they are linked to our way of living reality.

TIP 3

For the #TEAMCOHERENCE: be careful not to become too didactic and descriptive in the photo-text combination; the risk is to become boring and pedantic.

For the #TEAMDISSONANCE: be careful not to create an excessive gap between your audience's expectations and the reality of the text; the risk is that they expect Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and find themselves Groucho Marx.