Since its public launch in 2010, the once simple photo-sharing app called Instagram has evolved into one of the most decisive social media platforms for businesses today.
The app that’s mostly seen as a place for selfies, fads and whatnots has now proven itself to be useful as well on the side of branding. Instagram’s highest potential to humanize brands over other social media platforms has drawn business owners both online and offline to adapt this to their marketing strategies.
Here are some interesting stats you should know about Instagram:
- As of December 2016 has over 600 million active users and counting
- Holds the top 8 rank for the most popular social media networking sites chart in February 2017.
- Used by 32% of internet users (28% of all U.S. adults)
- 48.8% of brands are on Instagram. This year, it’s been predicted to rise to 70.7%
- 90% of the top 100 brands in the world has built their presence on Instagram.
- 96% of US fashion brands are on Instagram
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Over 1 million advertisers worldwide use Instagram to share their stories and drive business results.
- Instagram is the king of social engagement. It’s 10% higher than Facebook, 54% higher than Pinterest, and 84% higher than Twitter.
With all these whopping stats, it’s not surprising how more and more marketers from all levels and niche are hustling to get a fair share of benefits in this platform. However, building your brand on Instagram isn’t as easy as setting up your account. You need to actually make sure you got these three pivotal factors secured.
In this post, let me share with you the three key factors to help you build and enhance your brand on Instagram.
1. Polish your account graphics
First things first – your profile photo.
It’s crazy to think how a little round profile picture can make or break your Instagram account. But you can’t deny that it’s one of the first things people will see on your Instagram profile that will determine if they will follow you or not. It’s then crucial to make sure you choose a highly engaging and quality photo to stand out and increase your number of following.
With a tiny round size picture of 110 pixels in diameter on a desktop computer, you have to be mindful of what you’re going to put there.
Use a profile photo that makes sense
Depending on how you want to use Instagram, that is, either for personal or business you need to setup a profile photo that will make sense to your audience. For personal accounts, you should use your face as your profile picture. Thing is, people get to connect more deeply and faster with real human faces than animals, things or inanimate objects. However, you can simply use your own brand logo if your account is for business.
Use High-Quality photos
The clearer and professional-looking your photos appear, the better. Right after people see your profile, higher chances are they will do a quick 5-second scroll of your newsfeed. You then have to put emphasis on high-grade photos but, you don’t actually need to have a fancy background in photography to achieve beautiful and highly-engaging ones.
Add a strong Call-to-action with each of your photos
Remember that what you want to achieve is engagement with your audience. Adding perfectly laid CTAs on your HD photos does well on reminding your customers that they have to do a certain action to get and remain connected with your feeds. CTA’s doesn’t have to always be a ‘Like us‘ button. “Tag one of your friends you wish to travel out with” or “double tap if you like this“
2. Good posting schedule
Consistency is still key if you want to improve your branding strategy on Instagram. You need to have a regular posting schedule say, every three to four hours. You don’t want your audience to perceive your posts as spam because you unmindfully post bulk images on your account every 10 minutes.
If you want to tell your story through a set of images or album though, the good news is that Instagram carousel is now available which lets you post up to 10 photos or videos. Your audience can easily swipe these photos and get more of your story.
Now, if the real-time posting doesn’t work for you, there are also scheduling tools for Instagram that you can use at your ease.
Question is, when is the best time to post? Well actually, there is no single best time to post on Instagram. Your audience on the best-case scenario is scattered all across the globe and will be active at different hours of the day. However, if you have a place or time zone to base upon, it’s highly recommended to post in the morning, at lunchtime and evening.
3. Know Who to Follow
One way to increase your Instagram engagement is to follow people.
However, following people on Instagram takes a lot of consideration. It is rare to use this kind of interaction because most users mind their ratio, the number of their followings compared to their followers, so you must use it wisely. Here are some tips to help you:
Follow those who are interested in you
Valuable connections grow within shared interests. If you follow people who interest you, it will be easy to build brand recognition. It will also be an advantage in choosing who your audience will be.
Follow those who are relevant to you
Following relevant people means a lot. People or companies related to your business will help you grow by observing and learning from them. Observe how their marketing works, what makes their brand significant, what are their disadvantages, and so on.
Follow your affiliates
Do you have business partners? If you do, follow them on Instagram. It shows solidarity which makes your brand look strong and united. Users will be interested if your brand promotes harmony within your group.
Follow your customers (but not all)
It is important to interact with your customers, owing to the fact that you work hard to market your product and make them believe that they must spend their money and trust to your brand. However, it is not necessary to follow all your customers. You must still be picky when following people because some customers post discrete contents that don’t actually help you.
Following people or company is one way to interact with others users of this social platform, but you must be careful. It is not just a simple ‘follow-them-to-follow-you’ rule, it is about creating valuable engagement which leads to branding improvement.
Create beautiful Instagram graphics with Youzign
Like we mentioned earlier on, you don’t need to be a professional photographer or a designer to come up with good quality Instagram posts. One of the prime reasons why photos don’t look good on mobile or computer is bad dimensions.
With Youzign, you can easily set the correct sizes for your Instagram profile picture and post images. There are four types of formats that you can use for your Instagram graphics:
For creating professional CTAs for your newsfeed photos, you can simply customize one of our Instagram premade templates in just a few clicks to match your brand.
Wrap Up
Instagram’s claim to fame is it’s emerging potential over other social media platforms to help businesses build and humanize brands. The domino effect is that more and more business owners both online and offline are now adapting this to their online marketing strategies.
However, establishing a brand presence on Instagram isn’t as easy as setting up an account. You have to make sure your account graphics are well setup and professional looking. You also have to be consistent and establish a good posting schedule, and lastly, follow relevant people that will add to your online presence.
The thing is, you don’t need to have a fancy background on design or photography to make sure you succeed in this platform. With easy-to-use graphic tools like Youzign, you don’t have to spend a fortune on designers to edit or set the correct dimensions for your photos. You can do it by yourself in no time.
So start creating beautiful and professional-looking Instagram graphics today with Youzign! You can try it now here 100% free.
By the way, feel free to share with us your thoughts or questions in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you! 🙂
To your success,
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