We live in a world where things are more digital than real, right? Where there are more than a million pictures posted everyday on Instagram and Facebook, you shouldn’t lack.
There are a lot of ways using which you can create your brand identity on social media but there are some key elements that you should keep in mind while making taking your business online on social media.
1. Research and Strategy
Before hoping on the board of social media, you need to research through the internet and know all of it and then you need to make a marketing strategy on how will you market your brand on social media.
Certain factors that you need to take care of are:
1. Know your goals
You need to get a hold of your goals, you really need to know why you are marketing your brand on social media? What is the purpose of your account and what kind of expectations do you have from it?
Instagram is a good platform for you to advertise your business because it can connect you to a millions of people out there and it will directly link them to your business website, what else do you want?
You need to make sure that your goals are achievable and not just talks in the air.
2. Target your Audience
You really need to know who are you targeting with your posts and content on Instagram. You should be well aware of your business’s audience and who will realistically shop from you.
Instagram is popular among population that is under 40, so you need to make sure about what are posting on your account.
3. Study your competitors well!
You need to do a good and hard search on what your competitors are doing and how are they doing it.
You need to study their posts, their followers, their hashtags, captions and everything else that is making them top on Instagram.
And make sure not to copy what they are doing exactly, you will be in a lot of trouble and they will know that you have copied their style.
4. Content strategy
You do know that content is important, right? Content can be anything either visual or written.
One thing that you need to know is your audience and your followers both are different. Your audience is the one that does not follow you but can still access your page, they can see your content.
You also need to study what gets users engaged on Instagram, trending hashtags and everything that makes Instagram such an important pafrt of their life.
2. Look out for the theme!
We have heard this a lot of times and we know it personally too that Instagram is all about visuals.
There are accounts that are regular with their content and posts but they post low quality pictures and they do not get audience or followers.
You need to make out what kind of content do you want to share with your audience for eg. If you are a B2B company, you can share your customer’s reviews, product photographs etc.
Next, take care of the theme that you are using on your page and keep it consistent throughout your page. Don’t think that different visuals throughout your page will attract people.
It should be a combination of solid colors, shapes, patterns, and/or different fonts. Keep in mind to use high quality visuals, be it your images or your videos.
3. #hashtags
Another important feature of Instagram is hashtags. You need to use hashtags that are creative and trending. You need to use hashtags in your Instagram posts and Instagram stories. Most of the time, brands are known through their hashtags.
If you want audience or followers on Instagram, you need to come up with smart and creative hashtags that are associated with your brand and promotes your brand well.
You can also create certain hashtags that helps you promote your brand. You can use hashtags that promote a cause or are most used in a certain location.
4. Instagram [Stories+Going live]
The mobile version of Instagram offers you to post stories and go live on Instagram, you can post stories about your brand using hashtags. Although your stories will be there for 24 hours only but you can save them if you want and they will highlight whenever someone will access your account.
Go live! You should go live with background activities that goes around in your business, so that people can trust your brand and know that you are not fake.
If you want your video to be view able for longer than 24 hours, you can use another new feature of Instagram: IGTV (Instagram TV). You can upload videos longer than 1 minute on IGTV. You also have an option to share a certain part of that video on your news feed or you can simply link it to your Instagram Stories.
5. Collaboration
When you are done with the basics of your Instagram page what you have to do next is, collaborate with others, other brands. If you have a knack for engaging with people easily, you can build brand authority by partnering with the right Instagram influencers.
Instagram influencers and collaborators build their following over a significant amount of time. They gain trust and loyalty over that period. So choose them wisely and be patient. Your collaborations will not only create authority for your brand but will also bring you followers.
6. Consistency is key
Do you eat once in a week and not eat for another 3-4 days? No, right. You need to be consistent with your posts and follow up content. You need to post content on your page, not daily but atleast thrice a week to maintain consistency.
Give complete updates about what you are doing and what is new in your business, if you do not want to post daily you can post stories with what is new with you.
The timing of your posts also matter. Once you know when you get the most audience on your page, what is the frequency followed, you gotta stick to it.
And you need to have enough content in store so that you do not fall behind on content.
7. Know it all
You need keep a check routinely where are you with your page, how much did you progress and where do you stand with your brand.
You need to keep a weekly check of your account because you should have an idea about what strategies are working and what is not working for your page.
Read my blog on social media marketing here, http://teamjugadu.com/blog/how-to-do-social-media-marketing/