When you post a landscape image to Instagram the GUI offers the ‘pretence’ that you can render landscape images with the [] little landscape icon, and as you go through the posting process it seems as though Instagram is going to render it that way - and it does - but only on the actual post view.

In the feed view it is truncated.

Optimise your images for the feed view

The feed view is the most important view:

• It will generate the clicks through to your post.
• It is the feed that people see when they click on your profile.

Optimise your images for the feed view, and that means creating square images.

Do not be tempted to upload landscape images into Instagram.

I know how easy it is to be tempted not to do it:

• it looks OK in the preview,
• you don’t have time to reformat for every platform,
• maybe it will be OK in the feed,
• people don’t really care.

They do care. They won’t click through. It does make it look as though you don’t know what you’re doing.

Format your images for the platform you are using.