Instagram Carousels Explained

What are Instagram Carousels and why should you use them?

A Carousel post is a post you create for your main feed in Instagram that allows you to share up to 20 images or videos in a single post.

Users are able to swipe through the content when they come to your Carousels and for this reason they can be a useful tool to get people to stop scrolling and sit up and pay attention to what it is that you are sharing. 

The longer someone spends swiping through your Carousel the more interesting it tells the algorithm the post is, the more organic reach you potentially will get from it. 

Done well, Carousels can both provide great value to your audience and prompt the algorithm to look on your content favourably, sharing it organically with many more people than a single image will.  

For Quiet Creatives Carousel posts lend themselves best to storytelling, album sharing or providing step by step tutorials.

CAROUSELS VS STILL IMAGES

 As a general rule, when you can you should aim to use Carousels instead of single still images. 

 Carousels have:

- A higher engagement rates compared to single-image posts

- The ability to tell a more comprehensive story than a single image post (and viewers LOVE being engaged in a story)

- The ability to showcase multiple products or aspects of your work

 - Increased chances of appearing multiple times in followers' feeds because Instagram will share different slides from the same post, not just a single slide to your followers

TECH SPECS FOR CAROUSELS

If you are going to start making more Carousels as part of your Instagram strategy make sure you get your technical specs correct.

You can upload carousel content in various sizes and aspects including in square, portrait and landscape. I would as a general rule however avoid posting in landscape, as we scroll on the vertical which means landscape images / video content is more quickly passed by than portrait content for example. 

Instagram carousel posts size & aspect ratio:

• Portrait: 1080 x 1350 pixels, 4:5 aspect ratio 
• Square: 1080 x 1080 pixels, 1:1 aspect ratio
• Landscape: 1080 x 566 pixels, 1.91:1 aspect ratio 

Keep in mind the first image in a carousel will be cropped to a square in your Main grid view so you want to aim to keep the focus of that first image within the square 1080 x 1080 pixels frame.

Should Carousels be part of your Instagram strategy?

As of the end of 2024 Carousel posts are starting to be shown in the Reels feed which will result in increased visibility for these type of posts. It remains to be seen exactly what this will look like over time (as the functionality at time of writing is still rolling out) but I do recommend that it be something we all experiment with, particularly if video in the form of Reels is something that you have been shunning these last few years. 

If you would like further advice for how to get the most out of your Carousel posts, you may be interested in my new guide, "Carousel Creation for Quiet Creatives". It's all about how Quiet Creatives can use Carousels to best effect, driving reach and growth for their Instagram accounts. 

Check it out here.

X Ilona

Written by Ilona Glastonbury