An ultimate guide to master the art of building a brand on Instagram
Marketing has changed over the course of last ten years. We now use mediums that were nonexistent back then and this has in turn changed strategies. Plans are now being made keeping in mind the target audience and the platform.
One of the most exciting platforms is Instagram. It is unique from others because it offers something that no other platform has managed to, and that is a high follower-brand owner interaction. The follower engagement metric is highest on this platform which gives a unique benefit to those having a strong presence here.
Which, coming back to the topic at hand, makes Instagram one of the most important fronts for any brand. In fact, any brand that wants to establish its identity must have a presence and following on Instagram.
If you are someone who has been looking for a bit of help with mastering the art of building your brand on Instagram, then you are at the right place. In the lines that follow, you are going to discover that it has always been within your grasp, building you brand.
All that you need is a guiding hand and certain tools which are provided by Instagram itself. With the right strategy and correct execution, you will see your brand become a major player in a few months time.
Of course, you need to invest time. Strategy cannot make up for time!
Let’s get started.
Know your audience
Whatever your product is, it has to have a target audience, the people to which it is going to cater. Having that in mind you need to cater to need of that demographic. A consumer base is divided not only on the basis of its age but also its consumption preferences and pattern.
Before Building a brand, you need to have your preferred clientele clear. Shifting your answers midway a campaign or after you have established yourself (somewhat) would damage the reputation of your brand.
In order to grow at a steady rate in any sector, knowing the people you target is a huge plus point. You are able to get many points/consumer details that are not otherwise available. Your style of marketing becomes clear. Strategizing is easier as tastes and preferences are easier to find out.
By this time, you must be like, “why are we talking about all this?” Well, we are talking about all these details because this is what you base your content on, the posts that going to go up on your page. Creativity is an excellent thing but you need to channel it in a specific direction. You don’t want to end up all over the place.
Honor a craft
Everyone and anyone who is in it to make a name for their brand should a page out of Nike’s book. Even the great Steve Jobs one quoted Nike as an example. What made Nike, a company that sells shoes such a big name in the market?
The answer is, the fact that they did not focus on their product. Rather than getting obsessed about their product, they chose to focus on the people using it. They chose to honor the craft they served. And that was a unique approach at that time.
But it paid off, not because they were rich and had deep pockets but because they connected with their target audience over it. On Instagram, you have got quite an open market where there is lot of lateral movement amongst the consumers.
Post good content that showcases not only your content but also the craft that it honors. That area, that craft, it will be what bring your followers together. Over time, you will notice that your efforts have paid off and you are able to command a much more respectful number of followers.
Another benefit of such an approach is that the follower engagement rate would always be high. That is to say, your followers would be more oriented towards interacting with you and going for your merchandise.
Know when to debut your content
You have to know when to post your content. There are certain hours that are more preferable than others on the sheer basis of how visible yours posts are going to be. The sheer logic behind this strategy is not to get buried under posts from other pages.
Alternatively, you can post stories to stay in the top shelf when it comes to visibility. But that is not going to cut it for long. You cannot build a brand on an empty page. So, you need to figure out the perfect timing for your content to debut.
The best timing, according to research is at 1 in the morning followed by 8 in the morning. This is based on the fact that many users are checking their account either first thing in the morning or it is the last thing that they do when they go to sleep.
Posting at this opportune time means that your content is going to stay at the top of the page and will be viewed by your followers before they lose interest in posts and just randomly scroll through. You want to be in a place where your followers are able to interact before losing their interest.
Make use of Instagram tools to get an insight
Another thing in the list of “First things to do” is that you switch to a business account. Instagram for business gives you many additional features that are not available to normal accounts. For starters, you get to know all the stats related to your posts and your followers.
These details not only tell you about the increase in the number of followers that you got but also minute details like, data about the post that made you peak and stats about what kinds of posts bring your engagement down. These prove to be valuable in the long run.
The trick here is to do more of what gets you to the peak. That is the kind of engagement that your consumers are looking for from you. Attracting followers is the best way to make your brand prominent.
As you gain the number of followers, you will start to get invitations to collaborate with other brand owners. Conversely, once getting to a respectful number, you can also start to reach out to other people who run in the same or alternate area to come and collaborate with you. This will prove to be beneficial to the both of you.
Collaborate with likeminded people
Collaboration is an excellent way to rapidly boost the following of any page. The reason behind why people benefit so much from collaborations is that they are an untapped market for all the parties concerned. For example, if you have 300,000 followers and the page you are collaborating with also boasts of a significant number, then you are immediately getting exposure to hundreds of thousands of new people.
And if even a small percentage of them decide to start to follow your page then it is an added benefit for the both of you. This type of increase in reach and exposure cannot be achieved even with the help of paid promotions. But we will come to that in a bit. Paid promotions are beneficial too.
Collaborations generally take place between a brand and a popular page. The reason behind it is that people pages are higher on interaction than brand pages and lifestyle pages. The followers are more open about their views.
Yet another benefit is that these types of promotions can be done even without involving money in the mix. All that you have to do is reach out to someone with mutual interest in the area you work in. who knows, you might even be able to get creative ideas and inputs from them.
Giving shout outs to other pages is a good way to start these conversations about getting into collaboration.
Declare what you stand for
The consumer base of today is getting clearer about what they want from a brand and the type of content that they are going to stand behind. To cut a long story short, you should have an attractive bio. It might seem like a small thing, considering how less of an area is devoted to it. But that is where all your efforts are going to show. Your followers are not going to go for your product right on your page.
You need to give them a gateway to your site where they have the option of browsing through all products in detail and getting all queries met. They are informed about shipping and the cost involved, you get the idea!
That is what you need to have in your bio. A URL that leads to your site, a concise description about what it is that you do, and a call to action to serve as the last push in a series of sales endeavor. Having met all these bases, you will notice that you have a sharp increase in traffic generated from your Instagram page.
However, not everything is yet achieved. By merely making a declaration about what your ore values are, you cannot woo followers. Host small giveaways, reward followers and stick to your ideology, all in all, do not come across as a fickle.
Post and content
Last but certainly not the least, you have to pay huge amounts of attention to what it is that you are posting. All the above mentioned strategies are not going to be of any help if you are not able to stick to your quality bar. The moment your quality begins to drop, so will your followers.
The content on your page says a lot about the type of brand that you are building. With more than a billion active users, it is a huge platform with no place for mediocrity, the reason being the number of options available at any given time.
It is important to be regular with your posts but you should never compromise on quality. Posting once a day is good enough for your page, unless you have the content to back up multiple posts, do not go for it.
As a brand, you invest in certain areas. For Instagram banding, invest in your posts. Get better equipment and move to better labs to boost the quality of your page. Changes are not immediate but they will happen over time if you let it.
One last piece of advice! The 7 step approach mentioned here is not a one shot remedy. You have to stay on course, and don’t forget to repeat!
A brand was not built in a day!
Anything that is worth doing, takes time. Building your brand is a permanent investment; it is going to take an ample amount of time. What I am trying to say is, do not lose heart if you don’t get to immediate results. Sometimes, the best things happen to those who wait.
Instagram has got a strict policy against malpractices; do not try to use bots to boost your following. What they do, they follow and un-follow accounts in bulk. This creates a large wave of a movement from on account for Instagram to take a notice of.
You would get banned and your account flagged. After a few warnings, your page would be permanently shut down and all your effort be wasted.
Just stay on course and follow the advice from above, the seven step approach should be more than enough to get your brand an identity of its own. And once you get established as a major player in the area, upcoming businesses would be lining up to get in collaboration with you.
You can also use ingenuity to get an extra edge in face of competition. Be creative with your layouts, use patterns or formations that come out when nine or more posts are viewed as one in your profile.