I don’t know how to break this to you, but when your “friends” told you that that photo was okay to post, they were just being nice. Evan Smith, the social media star, is not that friend and is here to tell you how it really looks. Like most members of Gen Z, Evan Smith is active on social media and decided to document his approach to mastering Instagram’s platform — but with a new approach.
In his over 300-part series labeled “Instagram Rating Returns,” Smith has developed a massive TikTok following of nearly 150k by critiquing his viewers’ Instagram feeds and guiding us through all the do’s and don’ts to hack the Insta game.
“I’ve always cared about my image on Instagram and TikTok,” Evan told me in our interview. “I’ve never had other social media-driven friends, so it’s always been hard for me to get photos and expand my Instagram, but I’ve always had the image of what others should do,” Evan says. In short, TikTok provided the ideal platform for him to form a community and resonate with a vast number of social media users
I myself fell down the deep rabbit-hole of binging every part of his “Instagram Rating Returns” series and contemplating my entire feed, I knew I needed to talk to our one and only IG fairy godfather.
Here are the insider tips I gathered:
The profile pic & bio
When it comes to your profile picture, Smith emphasizes the importance of showing yourself off.
“It can be a selfie or a photo of you with friends, but zoom it in on your face. It’s your feed and no one should ever wonder who you are,” Evan says. You’re the main character and your profile picture should show just that. The influencer expresses his dislike for animated photos as Instagram profile photos, advising us all to leave the cartoon characters for TikTok PFPs only.
Something else that does not have the Smith approval of our Insta icon? Emojis.
“I think they’re very tacky and should be left in 2019; it’s so simple and chic to put just your college and city in your bio instead.” Smith has a distaste for bios with multiple lines, and song/movie quotes that lean into too much going on.
He reminds me that the whole point of social media is connecting with others. When you have affiliations like your school, sports, sororities, and city on your bio, you’re showing people who you are and how they might know you. If you’re looking to expand your following or network, give people something they can relate to.
For more advice like this, stay up to date with his TikTok as Smith teases a video that’s dropping soon where he will craft appealing bio samples.
The Do’s and Don’ts of highlights
As an avid “Instagram Rating Returns” watcher, let me tell you, mastering IG highlights is painfully rare. Every time I see Evan rating someone who has highlights in their bio, I get ready for him to pop off.
Here are the most common mistakes I see featured in the Instagram Rating Returns series:
- Using uppercases in highlight titles
- Using solid colors for highlight covers
- Using cover photos from Pinterest that have little symbols or designs
- Not incorporating your feed colors in your highlight covers
The feed: editing, color scheming & cover photos
The biggest thing you should be doing if you’re revamping your Instagram feed is determining your aesthetic and picking colors that you can commit to incorporating in the majority of your cover photos.
While “Instagram Rating Returns” has garnered plenty of praise, Even also has a mini-series on his TikTok that helps us master the ins and outs of color-scheming!
For some of Evan’s all-time favorite feeds to get some much-needed inspiration, make sure to check out: Hannah Harrell, Francesca Farago, Olivia Hirst, and Daisy Birchall.
“It’s 2023 and I think minimal editing is the way to go. I personally don’t want to see oversaturated photos.” Smith admitted, reminding me that we should be enhancing our photos, not changing them.
Rumor has it that Evan Smith loves a good VSCO edit to make your Instagram pop. To my surprise, he was able to give me his favorite VSCO filters off the top of his head. You’re welcome:
- Al3
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With minimal editing, this filter helps soften the photo and brings out more neutrals in the photo.
- AL1 and AL5
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While also bringing out the neutrals in the photo, Evan explains that these filters are his musts for selfies.
“It smooths your skin tone without having to go into FaceTune and use the “soften” effect.
- c6
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If you’re going for a more nature-loving theme, Evan told me that this is the filter for you. He explains that the filter brings out the blues and oranges in a photo, which along with green are the most important colors for a nature theme.
“C6 makes your photo look more vibrant without taking away from other colors. When you turn up the saturation on VSCO, it turns every color up, which isn’t always what we want,” Smith says.
Evan reveals that sometimes the HSL tool is the only thing that he uses for editing to give a natural look. “The HSL tool lets you turn up the hue, saturation, or shadows of any color on the color wheel without throwing off every other color.”
Color scheming is an art at this point, but Evan has our back. On top of all the knowledge he gives us on TikTok, he also runs a feed generator account on Instagram that gives the best inspiration for color scheming, filler photos, and solo/group posing.
This is only the beginning of Evan Smith’s creative direction. The Pace University freshman gears up to not only continue his career in social media consultation but plans to grow his advice through other series like his Tinder rating series and is hoping to form editing packages for his followers. As he is starting his first year at Pace University focusing on communications, I cannot wait to see all of the knowledge that he will continue to spread.
Run, don’t walk to @evancuate on TikTok to follow along on the journey.