How to Make Your Brand an Insta-Icon
Setting up an account is relatively easy.
Gaining followers and creating meaningful engagement? That’s the tough bit.
As experts in taking care of social media, this is where we can help you out.
These days, people want to know more about their favourite brands than ever before and Instagram is the place to be if you’re a brand with a story to tell. Here’s some advice for those hoping to become a fully-fledged Insta-icon.
Build a Relevant Following
If you want to generate a return from your investment of time into Instagram, you must aim to attract the right sort of people to your feed. Thankfully, this is exactly what Instagram set out to achieve from the get go. The main aim of your Instagram profile is to build an image for your existing and potential customers and it therefore needs to be relatable.
To build your following you need to:
- Use high quality images
- Think of catchy captions
- Utilise relevant hashtags
- Reply to ALL comments
- Engage with people who have mentioned your brand
- Follow similar brands
Choose a Theme
First impressions on your page are crucial to whether you get get a follow or not and sticking to a strict theme is a stellar way to achieve this. Theme’s could include weddings, food, lifestyle or travel. However, your photos need to work together to master your vibe and add an aesthetic to your brand. Using similar filters and colour co-ordination when taking photos can help the page look sleek and professional.
Tell a Story
Generation Y are all about the story. Use your Instagram account to help tell your brand’s tale through your images; this will add value to your brand. Try to mix things up with images whilst sticking to your theme. For example, if all your photographs are of hotel rooms, your audience will quickly grow bored, you will lose followers and engagement will diminish. Mix things up with images of the food, spa, activities, grounds and even try to sell the image of your target consumer by adding images of guests enjoying their time at the hotel. To maintain and maximise engagement, you must post at least once a day.
#Hashtagging
Instagram has over 4 million active users a day and they love engaging with brands, even more so than on Facebook. In order to get your brand in front of these users, it is very important to hashtag. Try attributing popular hashtags and relevant tags to your post, such as: #photooftheday, #love, #fashion, #lifestyle, #foodie, etc. to gain as much engagement and reach as possible.
Engage
There are many ways of engaging with your followers, aside from posting pictures. Instagram has introduced new functions, including stories and live video. Explore all avenues of the platform to engage with followers in different ways. Liking and commenting is also a valuable way of engaging with other users. Doing this regularly will help maintain a more loyal following and keep your followers engaged. It’s sort of a get what you give dynamic on Instagram – people will often return the favour by responding to your reach out.
Promote
Another way of building followers is through promotion and paid adverts. You can:
- Link through to your Instagram posts from Facebook and Twitter to allow followers to quickly and easily check out your feed.
- Merge your Instagram into your Facebook profile by including a tab on the homepage.
- Run a social media competition
- Pay for sponsored posts which will pop up in targeted feeds. These ads allow new users to click through and follow you or visit your website.
Want to know more about what we can do to help raise your company profile? Or want to know a little bit more about social media? Call us on 0117 930 4365 or drop us an email, we’d love to hear from you.
