In a digital world, building your brand has become essential. It is pretty easy to promote your brand once you get the gist of it. Instagram has made it possible to be unique, recognizable, and to stand out from other users because it has the potential to reach a larger audience and build a target community around your brand. It is not, however, as easy as just posting a few photos. You have to cultivate a social presence that will attract your target audience. Forming your brand creates trust with your customers, clients, and your public in general.
So, here are some steps to build your brand on Instagram.
Set your goals
Building a brand without defining your goals can cost you money and much time. To create your brand awareness and increase your chances of being recognizable, you need to have definite goals for your brand promotion on Instagram. Your goals should be measurable, achievable, relevant, specific, and timely. Have a time frame to gain followers, what time to post and how often you should post. Consistency is extremely important.
Identify your target audience
Like any other business that is set to be lucrative, you need to know which market group to target and how relevant your content is to this market segment. You can research the characteristics of your target audience, say, age, mode of payment, engagement rate.
If you check your competitors’ followers within your niche, you can determine your target audience. You can follow their followers since they are realistically likely to consume your content or buy your products. Your brand arrives at an axis of realignment when you know who your target audience is.
Research on your competitors
Your content on Instagram represents your social presence. When you do your research, you will find out what your competitors’ followers like and what they engage with on most occasions. To build your brand, you have to be adaptive and align your content to what your audience would like to see.
Also, you should look for viral topics that correspond to your brand identity that will engage your audience. It is wise to create and curate a content calendar and plan using available social media tools.
Appealing photography
This bit is optional, but if you want to be ahead of your competitors, this is an avenue you should consider. You can either hire a photographer or get yourself a good camera since Instagram is all about visual content. You cannot expect high engagement with your audience if the visual material is of low quality. Furthermore, you shouldn’t as well post inconsistent high and low-quality images because that will create a poor impression of you. It is also smart to brand your photographs with your logo watermark.
Create a visual identity
As aforementioned, Instagram is a visual platform, which means your content defines your brand. Once you’ve decided on your content direction, you need to figure out the theme that will be consistent throughout and truly define or reflect your brand identity. A theme could comprise solid colors, filters, patterns, image size, fonts, etc. If you use a specific font, then it is important to keep applying that same font consistently. Inconsistent posting and different themes will only confuse your followers and eventually lose them.
Creative branded hashtags
This is a crucial step in building your brand. A lot of companies are recognized through hashtags that have been captioned. Hashtags are vital because they help you appear on the search results of the Instagram users who don’t follow you. Every brand on Instagram wants users to visit their profiles and engage with them or buy their products, so to be a step ahead, you have to come up with creative, unique, and relevant hashtags that align with your brand identity.
Note that while Instagram allows you to use up to 30 hashtags in a single post, you need to find the balance between the hashtags and your caption, or else your visual content will be overpowered and subsequently will overwhelm your audience at first sight.
Instagram stories and Instagram live
These two features available for the mobile version of Instagram can lift your brands to new heights. You can give your audience a snippet of your business and describe your growth, so your followers can feel like a part of your brand.
Instagram stories allow you to be yourself and be creative, which will keep your followers engaged. You can also make your audience ask you questions and answer them in real-time, or make an announcement. Your brand eventually gains authority and a loyal audience.
Collaborate
You can easily build your brand by engaging and partnering with macro-influencers on Instagram who relate with your audience and brand identity. If you are into fashion, you can collaborate with, say, a clothing brand. The collaboration will create brand authority and gain you new followers in time. However, if you don’t have time to cooperate with other users, you may utilize Instagram ads to get followers and grow your brand visibility, too.
Be Consistent
Being consistent is a very important factor in building your Instagram brand. Your timing has to be almost perfect to increase your engagement and stick to that schedule. Be consistent with your theme, layout, font, content, and hashtags for effective brand recognition.