Have you ever just scrolled through your feed and instantly recognized the look and mood of a post without knowing which brand it came from? If the answer is yes, then you understand what Instagram branding is all about.
Visual branding forms an important part of brand awareness and the establishment of a business’s digital presence. With the unmistakable power that Instagram has for businesses, it should already be a part of your social media marketing plan. Your Instagram should be a top priority in creating a cohesive digital brand presence!
In this Instagram branding lowdown, we’ll look at what branding is and what it can do for your business. Plus, we’ll get into the ways that you can bump up your branding on Instagram ASAP!
What Is Branding & Why Is It Important On Instagram?
Branding is a term used to describe all the things that make your organization and its products easily identifiable to the public. On Instagram, this is largely visual as it is a photo and video sharing platform. This makes Instagram branding all about the aesthetic or look of your posts and content.
Your Instagram brand image can tell your customers and other users all about your company from just your visuals. It’s a ‘what-you-see-is-what-you-get’ type of communication.
So, your visual branding should be so strong that it sells your brand, shares your values and brand personality, and boosts engagement.
Remember, you are competing with millions of other IG accounts so you want to try and grab users’ attention from the get-go!
The Benefits Of Instagram Branding
A powerful visual brand identity can:
- Increase brand awareness and recognition
- Establish trust in your brand’s consistency
- Boost engagement and traffic
- Represent your brand story, values, and personality
- Guide your content across other digital platforms
Want to know the awesome thing? You can reap all these benefits without breaking the bank with these six ways to improve your Instagram branding!
6 Ways To Up Your Instagram Branding Game
Cover The Social Media Basics
When you start a new social media account, the platforms will prompt you with introductory details you need to add- your username, profile, bio, picture, etc. They may seem futile in the greater scheme of things, but you shouldn’t dismiss these.
Don’t just add any old logo and an off-the-cuff bio. Really spend time on your profile as it is your Insta homepage. Treat it like a mini-website where users will visit to find out what you’re about. You want to use your profile to give them the right idea about your business.
Make sure your logo, handle, name, business address, and bio match those on your other platforms. You can also get creative with your story highlight covers and names, by making sure they match the tone and vibe of your business.
Identify Your Brand Identity
Of course, this brings us to the tone and vibe of your business.
You need to figure out what you want your branding to say about your business, and who you’d like your brand to speak to.
So, you need to define your branding goals and target audience. Doing this will help you fill in and give direction to other essential elements of your social media identity like your values, tone, voice, feel, and personality.
Develop A Brand Aesthetic
Overall, the above qualities – values, tone, voice, feel, and personality – come together to guide your brand aesthetic.
Think about your brand as a person. When you see a person for the first time, how they look gives you an opinion of who they are. Once they talk, that opinion might change. And the more you see of them, the more you learn about their personality.
If they consistently wear a particular color, you start to associate it with them as their favorite color. And, if they speak in a distinct accent or tend to repeat specific words, you learn to know that they’re the ones talking even from a distance.
Your use of color, language, fonts, words, images, and other design elements is much the same. Ask yourself what kind of person your brand is and represent them accordingly.
These are factors you should think about when dressing up your brand:
- Fonts (size, color, type)
- Color
- Photography and video style
- Language (formal, informal, casual, etc)
- Mood (trendy, boho, vintage, curated, improvised, retro, etc)
Consolidate Your Branding
Once you’ve decided on the above brand aesthetic elements, you need to make sure that your team sticks to it.
You need to create a social media style guide of sorts. This should be an easy-to-use instructional manual with your brand colors, fonts, feed style, image style, caption templates or examples, and application instructions.
Anybody on your team should be able to use your Instagram branding guide to create cohesive content for all online spaces.
Content accessibility makes consistency easier to achieve. So, make sure all relevant team members have access to updated logos, color palettes, and other content elements via your style guide.
Be Consistent
Consistency is a must on social media. It boosts brand recognition and optimizes your social media marketing and branding. There are ways that you can make sure you stay consistent:
- Post regularly to make sure that users engage with your brand, and become familiar with it, too!
- You must also engage often with other users’ content. You can do this by sharing user-generated content on your feed or stories, or commenting and liking your audience’s posts.
- Finally, be consistent with your content look. This is the culmination of your Instagram branding efforts as you present a cohesive image to your followers and audience.
The Bottom Line
Instagram branding plays a huge role in your brand perception and recognition. So, if you want to improve the impact of your digital and social media marketing strategies, you definitely have to revamp your Instagram.
Get started with these awesome tips today and your business could be the next big thing on the ‘Gram.
To help you ensure every post is in line with your brand, Preppr has just the thing for you. With our Instagram feed preview feature, you can plan out and visualize your feed in advance to make sure that you keep your branding on point!
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