With about 800 million users to date, Instagram presents itself as a great opportunity for brands to build an online presence on the social media platform.
However, with a mass of business accounts selling similar products/services, how then can your brand stand out and attract followers?
Fundamentally, it’s all about setting the right foundation for your brand to flourish on the platform. This includes the content of instagram posts, account profile and posting strategies.
Here are some tips on the above mentioned areas that can help you get started in building your brand presence online.
- Content
Deciding on what to post is probably the most crucial element when it comes to building the online presence of your brand. For one, you don’t want to come off as a business who is just trying to make money (Even if that is always the main goal, no one likes to help selfish and money-minded people).
As mentioned above, the first step in building your brand and achieving success is through a brand’s outreach to all individuals – be it royal consumers or even potential ones. Ultimately, you want your brand to be recognized, with a good reputation amongst all.
Avoid hard sells and focus on recognition
Unless you’re a major brand with massive recognition, you have to tone it down a little when it comes to promoting your product/service online.
However, fret not, it is just a matter of time before you get to that level of recognition… remember, baby steps!
One of the ways to promote your brand or product in a subtle manner can be done by hosting giveaways. Who doesn’t love freebies, right?
Moreover, holding wall contests is a great way in raising brand awareness; It encourages interactivity among users as not only does it grab their attention, they are able to like and post their comments on the respective Instagram post.
Another way to gain more brand recognition is by having little teasers prior to a product launch, or even having user-generated posts featuring individuals using your product! Not only does this help to promote your product, it shows people that the brand is credible and trustworthy – one of the few qualities that play a vital role in gaining a loyal customer base.
Stay true to bright and blue
According to Curalate, a visual analytics and marketing platform, the resolution and quality of images posted online does correlate with the amount of engagement it gets.
Here are some pointers to take note when it comes to determining the visual content and angle of your potential Instagram posts:
- High levels of blue in images can generate up to 24% more likes than those with red or orange colors.
- Brighter-colored images can increase engagement by 24% as compared to darker images.
However, this does not mean that ALL your posts have to be bright and blue. What is more important is for the Instagram post to be visually appealing to encourage more engagement with your brand’s instagram posts.
Indeed, it’s all about keeping in mind that you’ve got to do it for the gram.
Show off your location
Instagram’s geotagging features provides a platform for your brand to be recognized across the island and even worldwide.
Giving users the location of your brand allows them to see a variety of photos and videos tagged at the specific location. Also, you’ll be able see user-generated content relevant to your brand that you can re-gram!
With the talk of how visually appealing photos and videos are crucial when it comes to building your brand online, does this means that service-based brands who are not part of visually-driven industries are at a losing end?
The answer is simply, no.
Service-brands are able to benefit just as much from Instagram as with other visually-driven businesses. They only differ by having a seperate variety of options to choose from when deciding on the content of their Instagram posts.
For one, service-based brands can focus on posting content that is purely driven by the preference of customers. For example, visually showing what your customers enjoy and promoting your service through that.
Offering exclusive tips in your instagram posts is also another way to reach out to your audience. Everyone’s a sucker when it comes to getting exclusive, inside information – people like it when you make them feel special!
In building rapport between your brand and the community, it is a good idea to showcase your company’s culture online such as the celebration of festive occasions. This allows your brand to be seen as more relatable.
- Account Profile
Did you know that a SPLIT second is all it takes for a user to form an impression of your brand based on your account profile?
To be exact, it takes less than two-tenths of a second, according to a study done by the Missouri University of Science and Technology.
It may seem short, but it sure does go a long way of getting users to click that ‘follow’ button or even being enticed to scroll through your feed.
Your Instagram profile creates the first impression of your brand and is the backbone of your Instagram presence. It gives users a brief context of your company for them to form an impression of your brand.
However, on a platform where many users simply scroll through the mass of videos and photos, how do you make your Instagram bio as appealing to take a quick read at?
Emojis
Even though emojis may seem a little unprofessional on a business profile, picking ones that are relevant to your brand could help with reaching out to Instagram users.
Using emojis actually help companies to create a sense of brand personality. Brand personality is important as it helps your business establish itself as relatable, encouraging interactivity with consumers.
Taking into account that Instagram bios consist of just 150 characters, emojis could probably give a better description of your brand than words can do alone. Moreover, it could probably add a more engaging element to information as well.
(Source: Later.com)
Spacing and line breaks
No one likes to read chunks of information.
With 150 characters given to maximize the opportunity in introducing your brand online, this may result in bios becoming a little too wordy that may put off users from even taking a second look at your profile.
However, fret not! You can still maximize your entire character limit without shoo-ing off potential followers by using line breaks and spacings.
This allows you to break your bio into bite-sized chunks of information that makes it easy for visitors to scan through without missing important information about your brand.
(Source: Later.com)
Branded hashtags
Interactivity is key when it comes to building your brand.
More often than not, a compelling brand story consists of real people interacting with your brand.
One way to encourage this behavior is through the use of branded hashtags, that can be mentioned in your instagram bio to start the ball rolling. This makes it easy to collect relevant images when users use it on their instagram posts. It also allows you to re-gram these posts on your instagram account.
(Source: Blog.hootsuite.com)
Aside from using branded hashtags to promote a product or service, it could also offer brands a chance to showcase characteristics of the brand itself – be it brand personality or even its mission values.
(Source: Blog.hootsuite.com)
- Posting strategies
Since 2016, Instagram’s algorithm no longer allows you to view posts in a chronological order.
Instead, it has created an environment that adapts to the preferences of users. In other words, the success of your brand’s online presence lies on the used online platform itself.
Instagram’s algorithm creates an environment where posts with high engagement (likes, comments, shares, views etc) will rank higher on a user’s Instagram feed – increasing the potential number of views it is likely to receive.
Moreover, the amount of time spent by a user in viewing a post is a key factor for the algorithm in determining how much to boost your post. The algorithm decides whether to share your post among other users based on the measured engagement it gets.
Even though choosing the ‘right’ time to post content is important in getting as much users as possible to view your post, it would not matter if your post does not appeal to users as they scroll through their instagram feed.
Reach out to us at hello@alto.sg for a free consultation. We’ll be glad to help you out![/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]