Build your brand with Instagram
Instagram is a great way to expose your business to new potential customers.
While most social media marketers will prefer to work with Twitter, I have a special bond to Instagram and its visual content. If you want to be noticed and followed on IG, you have to come up with an original marketing strategy. You have to put in extra efforts to clearly define the image of your brand -- your colors, your personality as a business, the specific message you want to bring out to the world -- to build up a community of loyal and interested followers.
Indeed, you have just a small square picture or a 15-second video to catch their attention and bring them to be curious about who you are. I like the challenge. And I believe that the efforts you put in, doing it the right way, are always rewarding.
You can check the two main Instagram account I am in charge of; the IG account of my Fashion blog @curvilyyours, with about 7000 followers, and the IG account of rapper Ras Ablaze @rasablazeofficial with about 11000 followers.
Why I like Instagram as a marketing tool:
Because with Instagram, you can:
- Expand your reach through the use of hashtags. You can use specific words that you want to associate with the picture you post, to target a specific audience that would be interested in what you do/are/post. It is important to choose hashtags that aren't too wide or too narrow. It is a balance you learn with practice and time.
- Create trends or marketing campaigns through creating your own hashtags. As an example, I created the hashtag #curvilyyours, to bring curvy women to post pictures of themselves being proud of their bodies. It is bringing me more followers everyday, and to many women,, it has become an automatism to integrate my hashtag in their list of hashtags, so they are becoming loyal to me, and by being so, they are becoming advocates of both my blog and my message.
- Build up a clear brand image. As I mentionned above, the secret to a good Instagram strategy isto target a specific audience by posting amazing and eye-catching content. Find your niche market and develop a visual strategy around it. The extra efforts you will put in to get notices on IG will actually help you build your image.
- Get loyal followers. By engaging (liking, commenting, following) with followers interested in your industry or niche market, you create loyal followers. You will all feel a sense of solidarity and feel inter-connected, so you will naturally be inclined to want to listen to each other. Given of course that your marketing strategy is top-noth ans that your aren't just floading people's newfeeds with too common pictures of products you sell. Instagram is all about the visual, about imagination, about inviting people to hop on your dream boat.
- Be part of a community. By defining a clear image of who you are, getting loyal followers (and following them back because IG is a 2-way thing I believe) using your own hastags and the ones specific to your niche,
- Organize online contests/competitions to build brand awareness. as IG is all about pictures, organise a photo contest/competition.. Base your competition around a theme that’s related to your business and watch the entries trickle in. Choose a specific hashtags for the competition. The photos you receive could be used as future content for blog posts or email marketing.
- Reward your followers. Once in a while, you can reward your followers by offering Instagram-only flash sales or limited offers. But you can also reward them on a more personal level through the use of shoutouts, or by offering a shoutout to your customers if they purchase, being part of a marketing campaign that will feature your customers in their workout outfit if you are a sneakers brand for example, or painting if you are in the art industry, sitting at their desk if you sell office furniture. Think about it, the possibilities are endless.
Instagram is a great way to bring people closer to your business by expressing your personality and creativity. Don't hesitate to comment or contact me if you have any questions.
Anna B.
