Instagram is the number one visual marketing channel for your brand and is a perfect opportunity to create a loyal following that will ultimately grow your business. Did you know that people engage on Instagram 10 times more than Facebook and that more than 500 million Instagram users use the app on a daily basis? This makes it a hub for the most engaged audience on social apps.
Building brand awareness and long-lasting relationships depend upon a reliable and consistent Instagram presence. However, Instagram also heightens competition, making it difficult for businesses to get followers to engage with them consistently. This can be blatantly frustrating and overwhelming unless you’re a celebrity, but ways to reach the audience you wish existed.
Here are 6 insightful tips provided by MarketingGeeks on how to build a thriving Instagram account for your brand.
Table of Contents
1. Define your expectations
Instagram can help you boost brand loyalty, convert followers to sales, and create a better brand image. Additionally, you can target more diverse audiences on this online platform. Now, you need to think about what your goal is, and how you can achieve it.
Specifically, think through who you’re hoping to engage with and what your target followers will love seeing online.
This is a necessary step as you begin creating content style and putting into action strategies for your brand growth. If you lack a goal to chase, how would you measure success? What will guide your efforts?
2. Bring out your brand story
It’s important to understand that Instagram is a visually oriented platform. Your account should, therefore, strive to tell a story that is authentic and defined by your expectations. Questions like: “What does my brand represent?” and “What should my followers think of the brand?” should be answered in the storyline.
As with any good story, try to combine engaging action by showcasing collaborative content and events.
3. Align your content and audience
As a good rule of thumb, you need to be a content creator, not a promotional brand. People want unique and engaging content for them to relate to and enjoy, not a series of commercials for a service or product.
Get a definitive picture of who you are targeting on Instagram and what they enjoy. By checking out their profiles, you can get to know out about their hobbies, ideal careers, and even their preferred fashion brands.
After developing a consumer profile by browsing and studying numerous potential followers, brainstorm on how you can create content to meet their needs. For instance, if you are a fitness company and your research may show that your target customers enjoy looking at food on Instagram. You might take advantage of this by designing a unique feed of “food to eat to keep fit” or power snacks.
4. Capitalize on growth opportunities
Social media is still relatively young and dynamic. With that in mind, you should hop on new features and opportunities that may come up on Instagram. This is an excellent way of grabbing the subtle boosts that Instagram offers to early adopters, hence increasing user numbers. It also shows a forward-thinking brand presence, which is a plus.
5. Incorporate the right influencers
Influencer marketing is all the rage nowadays, specifically on Instagram.
Here’s why. Micro influencers with a following of up to 50K followers have robust communities around their personal brands and can influence their followers to follow, like, and buy from other brands.
The most straightforward approach of getting a few influencers for your niche to spread the word about your brand is by doing a simple hashtag search in your niche. You could also get the perfect match for your brand by using influencer platforms. Consider their niche, how they set themselves apart with regards to attractive content, how often they post and how they resonate with their followers before hiring an influencer.
6. Understand the ropes of the trade
One thing about Instagram that will need patience and time to perfect is optimizing your usage. Instagram is a single news feed, so you need to post at the right times to capture a broad audience. As you build your account, it will be worth noting that certain times will be suitable for your followers, but you should aim for 9 a.m., noon and 8 p.m. Eastern time.
Final thoughts
Instagram is gaining momentum and becoming a compelling social network with high engagement rates compared to other platforms. Now is the time to build a presence on Instagram and share your authentic brand message to a super-engaged community!
