Instagram is growing in popularity as another social media platform that focuses on pictures to promote special events and updates. Instagram has been around since 2010, but it has gained more popularity the past few years due to its increased level of engagement as a social media platform. This can also be attributed to the massive growth of online video.
So how can you grow your brand on Instagram?
A new business can take advantage of the popularity of Instagram by utilizing the various aspects of the app that draw attention to your brand.
Here are 13 tips that you can apply while using Instagram that may help you take your business to the next level.
1. Create a unique business account. Even if you already have a personal account, it is important to have a separate account for your business. This will help you promote your name under your company name, rather than your name.
2. Provide links to your website, blog, and YouTube channel. Instagram is a great way to share photos with others. But you also want to send people to your website from your Instagram account to increase traffic. Remember the primary goal is to increase traffic and send people to your sales page.
3. Include an interesting Bio and information about your company. You need to make your business attractive to visitors. Instagram attracts people because of the photography and ability to share photos with others. Use this to your advantage by including vital information that will hook visitors and make them want more.
4. Create content that will keep them coming back. The trend now is to build engaging content that will make users want to revisit your Instagram page. Like YouTube videos, Instagram photos can compel users to come back on a regular basis to see what you have posted next. Make the pictures colorful, interesting, funny, or compelling to achieve this. Give them just enough to make them want more.
5. Don’t be overly sales-oriented. People have learned to tune out various hard advertising these days. Banner ads, aggressive advertising, and other techniques rate poorly with customers online. To stand out on Instagram, you need to fit in with their laid-back social platform by sharing your brand information without being pushy.
6. Make your photos professional. One way to stand out from the crowd is to make your photos professional. There are many amateur photos on Instagram featuring pictures of babies, puppies, and trees. You need to establish yourself as a business with professional photos. Treat it just as you would your website and remember that everything you do online reflects on your brand.
7. Send out announcements with pictures and text. Use Instagram’s robust platform to send out exclusive reports to your Instagram followers with compelling pictures about upcoming sales and events.
8. Work on your follower list. The key to getting Instagram to work for your business is to increase your fan list. It should be one of your primary goals to grow your list of followers. The more traffic you get to your Instagram page, the better your impact will be.
9. Use hashtags. Hashtags started with Twitter but lately other social media platforms have begun using this technique to increase their SEO and results. Put hashtags that identify your brand on your Instagram account to increase the likelihood of being discovered by your target audience.
10. Post often. Like Facebook and Twitter, Instagram can only help if you make regular posts and regularly engage your audience. Post about new products and services, announce special events and provide links to live video feeds, to name a few. This kind of strategy keeps you on the radar of your target audience, which increases the likelihood of sales and conversions.
11. Put your Instagram link in your campaign emails. Don’t forget that your Instagram account becomes a part of your overall branding. Just like your website, your Instagram page becomes a way that customers find out what you are doing when you offer sales and other events. Be sure to include the links to all of your social media in your marketing emails for maximum effect.
12. Put a link on your main website to your social media. Social media is one of your best connections to your potential customers. Make sure you put natural links on your website so that people can go directly to your Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts to add you from your main site.
13. Work on your branding and logo. Instagram for businesses is about branding. One of the most important ways that people identify you with a brand is through your logo. If your logo is not getting you the results you need, it may be time to change it up a bit. Look at your logo and see if you think it needs sprucing up. Does it adequately affect your brand? Are the colors appropriate for your business? What message does your logo send? Consider these things and change your logo if needed to maximize your impact on Instagram.
Using a Professional Logo on Instagram
One of the most important things to accomplish when using Instagram is making sure you have a professional photo of yourself or a nice looking logo for your brand. This is one of the first things that should be on your list to do, as everyone is going to see this profile image.
You could try to create your own logo. There are plenty of downloadable graphics programs that allow you to create an image that you want to use with your brand. Some successful companies have used a friend or other person they knew to help them create their logo. But with our age of social media where a picture is worth a thousand conversions, can you risk this to just anyone?
It’s best to leave logo design for your brand in the hands of professional logo design creators.
One overlooked aspect of improving your logo is the fact that images are also searched. When someone does a search in Google for something in your niche area, your logo may come up in the search results. For this reason, it is important that your logo is professional, attractive, and reflective of your brand. People will often judge what your company is about simply by looking at your logo.
To learn more about ranking for your name, brand, logo and identity, be sure to follow these simple SEO tips.
Infographic and Logo Design Services
Our services range from custom infographic design, social media background images and even full logo design and rebranding for organizations of all sizes. We work with you every step of the way to ensure that you like what we do. One way to ensure that you are pleased with the results is to take a look through our portfolio area and see the work that we’ve created for other clients around the world.
Your logo and brand identity are two of the most important components of your business. Instagram is all about creating original content and sharing it with your audience. This is something we specialize in, and can help grow your brand, business and social reach to a whole new level.
