With over 1 billion monthly users, Instagram is a great place to build your brand awareness and create a loyal customer base. But with all of the noise, how do you stand out?
By developing a resilient brand, that’s how!
What do we mean by a resilient brand? We mean a brand that can stand the test of time. A brand that has a loyal following and unique positioning.
Before you even go about starting an Instagram profile, you need to make sure that you have your branding basics. That’s a name, brand strategy (your mission, values, customers, competition, brand personality etc), and killer visuals (logos, colours, typography etc). Once you have these, it’s time to build your brand online.
Instagram is a perfect platform for both product based and service based businesses to thrive and make sales. You just need to use it correctly and consistently.
Check out the top 8 things you can start doing to build a resilient brand on Instagram:
1. Create a killer bio
Your Instagram bio is prime real estate. Think of it as your elevator pitch. You only have 150 characters to entice your audience and make them stay. You need to describe who you are, what you do, why you’re different and give a call-to-action to tell your audience what they should do next.
Pro tip – your name is searchable, so make it something your ideal customer would search for i.e. if you’re a graphic designer, write that in your name!
2. Use a design platform to create your images (e.g. Canva or the Adobe Suite)
Instagram is a visual platform, so creating eye-catching imagery is a must. In order to create cohesive visuals, using a design platform is key. Depending on what you have available, you can either use Canva or the Adobe Creative Suite. House all of your Instagram files in one document so you can check them for consistency.
Pro tip – If you want to see how your images will look next to each other, use a scheduling tool such as Planoly, Later or Sked Social to preview your grid and move posts around accordingly.
3. Choose a ‘grid pattern’ for your feed and stick to it
There are multiple ways you can present your imagery to make it eye catching and consistent. We like to call these ‘grid patterns’. The different patterns are as follows.
1. The Checkerboard – This is when you alternate between a coloured tile and an image – this is great for service based businesses who love to share value-adding content.
2. The Rule of Three – This can play out in two ways. In each line you can either have 1 tile and 2 images, or 2 tiles and one image. The first will result in a coloured block running all the way through the middle of your feed and the latter will result in an image running through the feed with tiles either side
3. The Seasonal Grid – This is a fun one and great for photographers. This is where you have different coloured ‘themes’ for different times of the year and seasons. You can go from a yellow grid to a purple, pink then blue. As long as the tiles are all consistent.
4. The Preset Grid – This one isn’t so much a grid look but more of a way to keep your feed consistent if you are just posting images. By using the same set of presets you can create a ‘mood’ for your Instagram. For example, you could have quite a warm feed with a lot of oranges and pink or you could have a crisp white feed that is very desaturated.
No matter which feed you decide on, keep it consistent and you’ll be on your way to having a scroll worthy profile.
4. Create an effective hashtag strategy
Hashtags are one of the most important, yet underutilised features on Instagram. Only 6% of your following will see your posts in their feed. That’s a scary statistic. With over 95 million photos being posted to Instagram every single day, hashtags help your post get discovered by viewers who are most interested in seeing it.
BUT! You have to use them correctly. There are some rules when it comes to using hashtags
- Don’t use the same hashtags on every post – Instagram will pick you up as a bot and may remove some of your rights.
- Add up to 5 specific hashtags on every post – Instagram will get suspicious if your hashtags don’t correlate with your image i.e. if you post a picture of a dog and #mcdonalds or #webdesigner, then Instagram will get a little confused.
- Create about 5 different hashtag groups depending on the type of post – this will add variety to your hashtags and allow your posts to show up in different groups.
- Create variety – have some that have large amounts of posts and some that have small i.e. use a hashtag that has 1.6 million posts and then one that has 12k posts. This will allow your posts to be seen in various audiences and you can start to monopolise the smaller hashtags.
5. Use the various Instagram tools
Instagram has a lot of different tools that users can take advantage of. The best part? When you DO take advantage, Instagram actually rewards you. Go live, create some fun Reels, use Instagram story stickers to engage with your audience. It’s scary at first to put yourself out there, but it’s worth it.
6. Post regularly
Consistency is key when it comes to building a resilient brand. You always want to be in the forefront of your customers’ minds. So that, when they’re ready to buy something, they come to you. You don’t have to post 7 days a week, but whatever frequency you decide, stay consistent with it. That way, your followers will start to anticipate when they will see you and will get excited about it.
7. Be social!
We can’t say this enough. Don’t be a post and ghost kinda brand! You need to stick around and have a conversation with your audience. Think of it like one big networking event. You wouldn’t walk into a room, say “hi” to someone and then walk away, right? So don’t leave your audience hanging. Reply to comments, message other brands, talk on your stories.
8. Use targeted ads to promote your profile
Finally, you may have a really consistent feed and message, but you’re just not reaching the right audience. We get it, standing out on Instagram can be tough. With the help of targeted ads, you can put your content in front of the right audience and fast track your success.
Phew, that was a long one! But it was jam-packed with information to help you get started building a resilient brand on Instagram. Hopefully you walk away with some little nuggets to start implementing in your business.
If you have any questions or want to chat about Instagram ads, we are your people! Get in touch with us today.
