165 design references

Pace a carousel around the reveal

@m1ervin on Instagram

A swipe sequence works when the first card only makes a promise, the middle cards add one piece at a time, and the insight and the ask wait until the end.

What to look at

The cover is yellow type over a portrait: THE ART OF VIRAL CAROUSELS. Card 2 claims 2500+ carousels. Cards 3 to 5 set the craft: square marked don't post, 4:5 if you will boost, 3:4 marked best; a safe zone of 180px top and bottom, 50px left, and 120px right; headlines of 50pt or more and body of 14pt or more. The story starts on card 6, still headed Safe Zone. Slide 1 is the hook. Slide 2 is the reason to care. Slides 3 to 7 are examples, one piece at a time. Slides 8 and 9 are the aha. Slide 10 is one comment to type, on posts from @officialandyelliott. Card 11 says follow @m1ervin.

Slides 3 to 7 are labeled The Tease: keep people swiping by revealing a bit at a time, shown as three posts rather than the lesson itself.
Slides 3 to 7 are labeled The Tease: keep people swiping by revealing a bit at a time, shown as three posts rather than the lesson itself.
Slide 10 is The Action. Both examples name one word to comment, DEMO or change, instead of a vague next step.
Slide 10 is The Action. Both examples name one word to comment, DEMO or change, instead of a vague next step.

Why it works

Instagram keeps a photo's resolution between a 1.91:1 landscape and a 3:4 portrait, 566 to 1440 pixels tall at 1080 wide, and crops anything outside that, so a square is still allowed and the card's don't-post ranking is the creator's, not that rule. The reason to delay the insight comes from carousels on websites and in apps, not from Instagram: Nielsen Norman Group found that most people stop after three or four items, because each one must be passed to reach the last, and that the first item is the scent for the rest. Their account of the peak-end rule, from Kahneman and colleagues' cold-water study, says people remember the intense moment and the ending more than the average, which matches this post: the aha sits on slides 8 and 9, and the ask sits on slide 10. Their interface research also says a command should open with a specific verb for what happens next, which is what Comment DEMO and Comment change do.

Try it

  1. Write the first screen as one promise, and keep the result, the price, and the process off it.
  2. Make the next section the reason to stay: what the client gains, what they avoid, or why your studio is the one to hire.
  3. Put the examples in the middle, one job per section, and save the result line for a later section.
  4. End on one button whose label is the action, such as Book a portrait date, not Learn more.
  5. Repeat that same button near the top, because many people never pass the first few items.

What it costs

On website and app carousels, Nielsen Norman Group found that most people stop after three or four items, and this plan parks the insight on slides 8 and 9 of a ten-slide story, inside an eleven-card post, so anyone who leaves at the hook never sees the point or the comment. Instagram still accepts a square, so treating 1:1 as forbidden throws out a size the app keeps. The 180px margins and the 50pt rule are the post's own numbers, and a margin that large on a phone card leaves a small picture. The shape also fails when there is no reveal, because the middle becomes cards people must pass to reach a comment box.

Words worth knowing

Sources