Developing your own Instagram branding identity is more than just creating a pretty page full of nice photographs. For businesses that take the time to build and adhere to a company branding, Instagram can soon become a superb place for generating leads and connecting with new customers.
What Are the Benefits of an Instagram Branding Strategy?
Of course, creating a totally new branding strategy on another social media platform can often feel like a lot of work for a business. Especially when social media sites can come and go in popularity. What happens when you invest in a branding strategy for a site that ultimately disappears in a few months?
When it comes to Instagram, though, this site has been going strong for years and is now one of the most popular online sites for consumers to find and engage with companies. Meaning, if you’re not using Instagram and your competitors are, then there’s a good chance that you’re missing out.
Yet staying ahead of competitors isn’t the only reason for an Instagram branding strategy, here are just some of the other ways a cohesive branding strategy on Instagram can benefit your business:
It Creates Brand Recognition
Creating a branding strategy isn’t a process that is only relevant to your Instagram page, instead this branding should be carried across all your social media platforms and website. That’s because, when you use consistent colours, logo and photography throughout your online presence, people will instantly be able to recognise that posts are coming from your business.
For instance look at our client Tiger Rock, here we helped build a brand identity that was carried across their logo, website, social media platforms and menus – it even fits in with the décor of the restaurant itself. By having this cohesive brand strategy, a customer who comes across a post on Instagram from Tiger Rock will instantly know it’s them and be more inclined to engage.
Builds Brand Trust
When you’ve put the time and effort into building cohesive branding through all your Instagram posts, it can really help build trust in both old and potential customers.
Just think, you might see a sponsored post with a product you’d like to buy, however, if you then click on that page and find inconsistent branding you might think that it’s not a reputable company meaning you won’t purchase from them.
The same goes if your Instagram page is branded totally different from your website or from your other social media pages. This inconsistency can make you feel like the Instagram page is a scam, making potential customers wary of your business.
Generate Traffic Elsewhere
It’s a common misconception that because you can only send your audience to one link contained within your bio, that Instagram isn’t a great platform for generating traffic. Actually, this is something to take advantage of as you can regularly change your bio link to specific parts of your website. Which is ideal if you’re running a competition or launching a new product.
How to Implement an Instagram Branding Strategy
Now that you know the advantages of social media branding, what are the steps that you need to take to ensure your branding is just as successful and professional looking as your competitors?
1: Your Logo and Highlight Cover Photos
When you first click on a company’s Instagram profile, the first thing you will see is a profile picture, their bio and any highlights you’ve created. This might not seem like a lot – especially when compared to a Facebook business page – but it’s still important that you take the time to make sure your branding is on point.
This means using the logo you use on all of your branding as your profile picture and creating highlight cover photos that use the same style and colouring’s as that logo. This will form the foundations of your Instagram brand identity.
2: Develop a Content Identity
Instagram is a very visual platform, where people will follow accounts based on the aesthetic and colouring’s they use in their photographs. This can either be done for the photography itself or by finding and using the same filter on everything you post.
For instance, a wedding company might wish to use white backgrounds and a popular wedding colour – such as blush – in their photos. You don’t need to be stuck with one colour though, many companies will choose a colour aesthetic for a set amount of time, like using oranges and browns during Autumn and then moving to a different colour when the season changes.
To get an idea of the aesthetic you would like to use, look through the profiles of other businesses in your sector to see what works and what doesn’t. This will help you build a brand identity for your own page.
3: Be Consistent with Your Posting
One of the greatest mistakes you can make on Instagram is to post 5 or 6 times one day (which can be annoying) or one day then not posting anything else for days (meaning no one sees your posts). Instead, you should look to making a posting schedule, such as once a day.
You’ll also want to experiment to see what times your posts get the most engagement from your target audience. You can then use a social media tool that will schedule your posts for you in advance, so that you’re always posting at the optimal time.
4: Create Your Brand Voice
Just as important as creating a consistent aesthetic on your Instagram page is developing and sticking to a brand voice for your page. This means that whenever a post is published the caption should always follow your chosen brand voice, whether this be funny, informative or using a certain slang. You’ll also want to decide if/how you will reply and engage with people on your page.
When you’ve chosen a brand voice, this should be clearly documented and given to anyone that is going to be posting on your page for you. That way you will keep your consistency.
If you’re looking to create a social media branding plan for your business but you’re unsure about where to start, here at Studio Coact our marketing experts can help you build the perfect brand identity for your brand. Simply with one of our team today!