Running a brand on Instagram isn’t as straightforward as it was a few years ago. In this article we’re going to guide you through the most important aspects of successful Instagram brand management.
Instagram is the fourth most used social platform around the world with 1.386 billion daily users. Falling just behind Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp, for daily users, Instagram is the most downloaded app in the world. Not only is the app popular, but Instagram is the eighth most visited website through browsers and the ninth most Googled search term. With these figures correct as of October 2022, despite competition and the boom in popularity that TikTok gained during 2020, the figures show Instagram is still a force to be reckoned with.
After growing exponentially since its launch in 2010, Instagram has become an incredible tool for businesses to grow their brand awareness. In fact, an Ipsos study commissioned by Meta found that people who use social media believe Instagram is the best place for keeping up with their favourite brands.
Optimise Your Profile
Making sure your information is up-to-date and complete is marketing 101 when it comes to running your brand on any platform. This is no different for Instagram.
When it comes to running a brand on Instagram, ensure your bio is full of details to help get you noticed. You can use emojis, lists, keywords, locations and a link to give the user a simple break down of what your brand is all about.
Instagram is all about aesthetics so make it look good. Make certain your logo is hi-res, consistent across your brand and all the details and contact options are correct. Think about your grid and plan your content to keep it looking neat and pleasing to the eye. Think about how you can use an emoji to act as a bullet point and use ones relevant to your industry/business. Look at what competitors do and avoid a basic sentence that isn’t as aesthetically pleasing from a branding perspective.
Utilise Stories
Well-created Stories should have just one or two fonts that suit your brand identity and can be tied in with your existing campaigns and posts for consistency. Creating pre-designed Stories as templates can speed the process up. Building your brand through Instagram stories is a great way to share the ins and outs of your business. It is an optimal way to use a link sticker and direct people straight to your website which is ideal for product sales too.
Share high quality photos that aren’t stretched and it’s a good idea to post daily. Why are links important to include? Over 7% of web traffic referrals from social media are from Instagram. That might not seem like a lot, but it is the third highest after Facebook then Twitter. Facebook leads with 72%. It feels like it goes without saying but we see it more and more, always post in portrait for stories you generate yourself. You can also utilise ‘share to stories’ from posts on your grid too!
Engage With Your Customers
As a social space, business relationships thrive on two-way communication. Responding quickly and helpfully to each enquiry you get is important, even if you take it off the platform after the initial response.
If you don’t use Instagram daily or get a lot of enquiries, look at implementing an auto-responder to let people know how to get hold of you by other means. Avoid having calling as the only option, create opportunities to make answering questions simple to suit the behaviours of your audience.
Make Use of Analytics
Instagram has a comprehensive analytics system that allows you to learn about your audience. Knowing who your current audience is, and making sure that aligns with your target demographic is important for brand growth.
You can analyse what has performed best in the last three, six and twelve months and learn from that. Find out whether Stories or Carousels work better for you and then plan more of that type into your content. Avoid resharing the same content over and over by investigating trends and delving into analytics of other brands in your industry or location.
Assess what your competitors are doing, look at how they are portraying their brand and benchmark their success against yours. Ask yourself if there is a set of hashtags they use and you do not. Are they sharing behind the scenes content? Using analytics to review your successful and unsuccessful content, alongside understanding what your competitors do, will make a positive difference to your brand awareness. A successful brand on Instagram is one that knows who they are, provides consistent messaging and exceptional quality content.
Understand Your Brand
As with all branding, choose your colours, fonts and style and stick with it across every platform and medium. If your font isn’t on Instagram, use one that looks similar and is easy to read. Look at how you can include emojis or a layout of formatting that is ‘your thing’ so it becomes consistent and recognisable to your followers.
Using Reels is a must to align with your brand goals
Reels are so popular that every brand should be using them at least in small amounts. This is because Reels reach audiences that don’t already follow you. If you’re stuck on what to turn into Reels, utilise old footage. Even if they are short, simple ones, using video will help set yourself apart from usual photo ideas.
With a fairly even split between males and females using Instagram (Meta doesn’t include other genders in reporting yet), Instagram can be suitable for most brands. Age demographics include ages from younger than 16 all the way up to 65+. The highest amount of users fall into the 25-34, 18-24 then 35-44 age groups respectively.
Our Lunch and Learn session on ‘How to run a brand on Instagram’ includes understanding your audience, both current and target. Getting to know your competition, using analytics and having a consistent and optimised brand is also key. Interact with your audience on their terms, and through their favourite methods for the best results.
On 23rd February 2023 we held a webinar on this topic, click here to watch the webinar in full or watch it below ⬇️
