Most individuals know there are several social media networks available to consumers with just a click of the mouse, or, more appropriately, the swipe of a thumb. Despite all the options for social media platforms, there is still one that is the most popular and used by millions of users worldwide — Instagram. Instagram usage has doubled in the last two years, and it has become the number one platform for people to share ideas and experiences, and discover new places. Why does this matter for your brand? The fact is that at least 80% of Instagram users voluntarily attach themselves to a brand via Instagram. That being said, brand engagement on Instagram is 10x higher than Facebook, and 84x higher than Twitter. Those statistics alone should excite you.
In the game of branding, your brand needs to stand out and have a voice. Being a consistent user on Instagram isn’t enough in the marketing world today. If you’re not sure where to start, we’ve laid out our branding strategy as well as some helpful tools that will get you started building your brand on Instagram.
1. Develop a Clear Strategy
When we begin working with new clients, we will first create and develop the client’s strategy for their brand on Instagram. In having a strong strategy, it will give the company a foundation that they can continuously refer back to, so that all content serves to support these original goals. Developing a strategy involves determining things like what you want people to take away from your brand, what your core ideals are, and what your target audience is. You want to communicate to people why they would bother to follow your company on Instagram, and what they can gain from its uniqueness. The last step in developing a strategy is examining the competition. We like to research what makes other brands in the industry successful, what users expect from similar companies, and how we can make your brand stand out from the rest.
2. Decide on a look and feel – and stick with it!
Deciding on a look and feel is important so that your brand remains consistent through all posts. This involves deciding on things like color schemes (warm, cool, bright, muted), tone (playful, elegant, serious), and photography style (lifestyle, black and white, scenic). The design step is how we decide on visual stimulation for consumers. Whether we use photography, graphics, font types, etc., we determine what your users would find enjoyable to look at and how the visual aspect of your brand catches prospective followers’ eyes. In keeping with specific graphic guidelines, this is the best way we’ve found for your brand to have continued success.
3. Post fresh content
Posting fresh and original content is one of the best things you can do to build a successful brand. We will familiarize ourselves with what other’s look for in content, what can emit certain human feelings and make your brand work for them. Why should your content and brand be shared? We research to find out how to make your brand do just that and become shareable. What we have found is that a plain, boring advertisement is not what most people are looking for. They like to find content that inspires them and catches their eye quickly.
A great way to create fresh content is by using a typography app. Why? A picture is worth a thousand words, but combining pictures and words can be even better. There are several apps out there that allow you to easily combine imagery and text, but one of our favorites is PicLab. It offers a wide range of fonts and layouts, and allows for creating eye catching content quickly and easily.
4. Be Consistent
This step needs no introduction. Consistency is the key to growing your brand and your audience. Be consistent with your brand, what it stands for, the message you want your followers to walk away with, and especially the visual aspects. Consistency will help your brand to keep growing over and over and gaining new followers often.
5. Collaborate with your Audience
As mentioned in the beginning, Instagram is the number one social media platform meaning it is a very active community with famous and non-famous individuals. Regardless of your overall brand strategy, the more engagement your posts create, the better. Olapic is a great tool to use to maximize engagement because it develops clear and easy to read analytics for every post you make. This means you can determine which posts are the most successful. Additionally, Olapic can help you acquire the best content for your brand such as captions, hashtags, and overall subject matter.
Another great strategy for finding out what your audience wants to see? Ask them! Running polls and asking questions not only creates a sense of connection between your brand and your audience, it also gives you valuable insight as to what you should be posting.
6. Have Fun!
We encourage our clients to get out there and have some fun connecting with their followers and building relationships. Always remember to celebrate your brand, connect with wonderful people, interact with everyone, and show your brand some well-deserved love! The most important step to building your brand is to have fun!
