Build Your Brand with Instagram Marketing: 4 Powerful Tips

The world today, as we all know it, has truly gone digital, and promoting or building your brand is a mile easier.

Most brands and businesses create websites that showcase their products and what they stand for, before proceeding to create social media pages to build awareness and grow their audience reach.

The existence of Instagram revolves around imagery and as a tool for marketing, it gives business owners, companies, and organizations the ability to grow and promote their brands, products, and services.

Instagram is currently one of the top social networks for brand owners and content creators to engage with targeted audiences, who are potential customers.

Instagram has the potential to connect a large audience with your brand and build a community that’s loyal to you. A brand, though, is more than just a nice-looking logo, a set of high-definition visuals, or certain aesthetics.

A brand is about your relationship with your customers, the feedback that aids in your growth, and giving back to the community.

With the help of social networks such as Instagram, building a brand has never been easier. You've probably seen or heard various advice on how to build your brand with Instagram, but here are some guidelines to make your journey easier.
 

1. Get a clear understanding of your goals

Before creating your business account or posting your first post, you have to ask yourself what you hope to achieve on the platform. If you don't do this and commit to it, chances are that it’ll cost you both your money and time.

To achieve creating awareness that will lead to amassing traffic on your Instagram page, clear goals are needed for brand promotion. Your goals must be specific and achievable; they have to be doable, measurable, relevant, and set to a particular time.

So go ahead and set a timeframe to get to a certain number of followers, likes, comments, or some other form of engagement.
 

• Do you want to spread brand awareness?

• Grow a community and acquire new customers?

• You want to increase traffic to your website (e-commerce or otherwise), or blog?

• Communicate and connect with your current customers?
   

Your goals can come in different forms as it depends on your brand, and then again, goals change from time to time.

So, as you grow, there’s bound to be a change in the goals you’ve set for your brand by using Instagram as a marketing tool. But have one before you begin your journey—a clear one!
 

2. Have a target audience

This is basically business 101! If you want to venture into marketing, knowing and having a target audience is one important medium to a smooth transition.

You should answer questions like this:
 

• What is the age range of the people that will buy my products or services?

• Of what importance are my products and services to this certain age range?
   

Research shows that the majority of Instagrammers are between the ages of 16 and 40, so you have to make sure your brand targets this audience on the platform.

Know what competitors in the same niche are doing on Instagram and you’ll find your target audience. And once you do, you’re already one foot in.
 

3. Know your competitors

As the saying goes, "no man is an island." The same goes for your brand when it comes to Instagram marketing.

Find others in the same niche as your brand; study them, their followers, how they engage with their audience, what kind of content they put out, the hashtags they use, etc.

Learn whatever will make your brand stand out, withstand the competitors (possibly overthrow them), and effectively build a community around it.
 

4. Develop your content strategy

The main reason why you're opening an Instagram business account is to get your brand, products, and services out there, and developing content is critical to the movement as it's what will drive followers and engagements to your page.

Instagram is an image-oriented platform with the inclusion of captions (text), so your content can both be visual and text.

Knowing your competitors comes in handy at this point, as you can analyze their contents, adapt to them, and bring your own creativity and uniqueness to develop them.

Also, follow trends and see what followers engage in the most, and key into it to drive your own content. Hashtags are another aspect to consider, to help in developing your content strategy.
 

5. Find or create a focus/theme that works for your brand 

As a business, you have to find a focus or theme that suits you and stick with it. As Instagram is more image-oriented, it’s important that you create a visual identity.

If you offer services, take pictures and videos of testimonials from satisfied clients, your office environment, the company’s and employee’s achievement. And for products, take pictures and videos of your product, and testimonials from customers.

One of the key points of branding is having a logo that reflects your brand identity. So, your logo should be a constant in your posts on Instagram.

Once you have all these down, you should know that whatever photos or videos you post on your feed should be of high quality.

Not having a constant visual identity or posting without planning is likely going to confuse your audience and stunt both follower’s growth and engagement rates.
 

6. Use hashtags (smart & branded) in your favor

Using hashtags increases the exposure you get on Instagram. Most brands are discovered by the hashtags they put up in the posts as they lead to showing up in the feed of someone that doesn’t follow you.

Watch the hashtags that your competitors, successful brands, or influencers are using and do the same.

Creating your own branded Instagram hashtags helps to build engagement with your followers and make your products/services easily accessible to your audience.

You can also use the branded hashtags of other brands in your niche so that your post appears on more people’s Instagram feed or the Explore tab.
 

Key takeaways

Once you get the hang of it, branding on Instagram becomes a breeze and you’ll not only be promoting your brand, followers, or engagements but you'll become fun and simple.

Keep in mind that with time, new innovations come from Instagram. Therefore, be ready to swim with the tide.