How to Start Branding Your Instagram
Make your unique brand identity stand out on social media.
By Jade Kühn · 2022/02/14
Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms today. If you want to use Instagram to promote your brand, you need to focus on the value your page provides. New customers might look at your page and think that the images and filters look good, but what will they learn about your business? What information are you giving them that they didn't have before?
Why Are You on Instagram?
There are hundreds of social platforms out there, so why use Instagram? Before you start branding on this platform, it is essential to know what goal you want to accomplish and whether this is the right platform to do it on. You don't want to put the time and effort into branding a platform that doesn't fit your business needs. One major factor to consider is whether your target market uses this platform and when they frequent it. This will determine your posting schedule and will give you an indication of whether this is the platform for you.
What Actions Do You Want to Encourage
Like with a blog post, newsletter, sales page, or any other form of marketing, you want to include a clear call to action. Being specific about what you want your post to accomplish will (believe it or not) increase your interactions for that post. It might seem silly or unnecessary, but sometimes people just need that extra bit of guidance to encourage them to take action on your post.
Start Branding
Now that you know this is the right platform for you and you have an idea of what you want to accomplish, we can get started on the basics of setting up your account.
Your Profile Photo
Do you have to use your business logo, or is a picture of yourself better? The answer for this varies. We generally recommend a picture for smaller companies since clients connect more easily with a face than a logo. A personal photo might not be the best fit for bigger companies for such a large brand, so a logo usually works better. In the end, it's up to you and what you think suits your brand better. Also, keep in mind that a profile photo is relatively small (110px × 110px), so whichever image you use should be the best possible resolution for that size.
Your Bio
You only have a limited amount of characters to work with (150 characters), so you have to make the best of it. You want to summarise your business's most crucial and beneficial information and present it to your clients in the most accessible format.
Your Link
You have ONE link available to you, so you need to use it to send people to the most actionable page on your website. It doesn't have to be a home page. It can also be your portfolio page, opt-in page, or contact page. You just need to make sure that it will convince your target market to work with you.
Highlights
Highlights and Stories can be an extremely useful way to present your products and services to the market. You need to work on promoting what you offer in short visual segments that are beneficial for your followers to see. You can use highlights to:
1. Showcase your latest products and promote your portfolio.
2. Inform clients on how you work and answer FAQs.
3. Build trust by showing client testimonials.
4. Share helpful information and resources (for example, blog posts) with your followers.
5. Showcase specials or promotions on your products.
What to Post
Just like every business, your Instagram feed is unique. You need to find what works best for you. It might help to ask yourself some questions about what you want to share. Examples of this may be; will you share any personal information or posts of yourself? What will your clients get from your posts? Are you going to use stock images or professional photography? You can also work out a schedule and set up a routine to make your posts more consistent.
Where to Start With Hashtags
Hashtags are those strange words that people always list at the end of their posts. To start with, we recommend using about 13 hashtags per post, but that is by no means a rule. Many people start with as many as 50, and others only use one or two. It's your personal preference, but we suggest using some, even if it's only a few. Here are some ideas for your hashtags:
1. Your business name or your personal hashtag - #jadesjournal
2. Your location - #pretoria
3. Your products or services (can be more than one) - #websitedesign #websitedevelopment #businessbranding #brandidentity #copywriting
4. Trends or social media relevant tags - #tiptuesday #throwbackthursday #followfriday #waybackwednesday
Get You FREE Post Schedule
If you want to nail down specifically what to post and when this is your chance! We’ve come up with a weekly posting schedule that you can get 100% for free. All you have to do is click here, fill in the form and we’ll send it straight to your inbox.
Take Action to Build Your Brand
So now that you know where to start, we challenge you to go ahead and put your knowledge into action. Follow us on Instagram @jadesjournalofficial and tag us in your next post so we can all support each other in our branding endeavors.
