How to Build Your Brand on Instagram

With over 300 million monthly active users and more engagement than Facebook or Twitter, Instagram is a powerful social media marketing tool that should be utilized by most brands. But how do you get your business noticed? And how do you connect with the right people? Here are 5 quick & easy tips to successfully build your brand on Instagram.

1. Keep your Brand Consistent

It doesn't matter which social media platform that you're using, your brand should be consistent. Make sure your logo, voice, and overall tone are the same. Use your company’s full name as the username. Example: @ThinPigMedia versus @ThinPig. Consider using a logo overlay on pictures for maximum brand visibility.

2. Sign Up for Iconosquare

Free to join, Iconosquare is an Instagram management tool that allows you to easily find new fans, connect with current fans and pull statistics. It’s incredible hashtag search capabilities are the main reason to use this tool. When you plug a keyword into the search bar, it pulls up a long list of similar hashtags and the amount of times the hashtag has been used.

3. Don't Be Shy About Using Hashtags

Like most other social platforms, hashtags are frequently used on Instagram. Keyword research for other platforms, can be translated to hashtags for Instagram. Feel free to start there. To dig deeper into hashtag research, use Iconosquare to plug in keywords you think may be relevant and see how many times they've been used. To decide whether or not a hashtag should make it onto your list, find keywords that have been used between 20,000 and 500,000 times. If it’s below 20,000 that means your hashtag won’t come up in many searches. If it’s over 500,000, so many people are using the hashtag that your chance of being seen is much lower. Find the sweet spot in between and your photos and brand will receive more visibility and engagement.

4. Regram Key Influencer Content

If you want people to dig your brand on Instagram, show them some love by featuring their posts and tagging them. Their picture could directly feature your brand or it could be a photo of something you think your fans would like. Regram your key influencers and the chances of your brand reaching even more people will increase.

5. Use High Quality Photos to Engage and Entice

Since Instagram is the most visual of all social media platforms, you want to be very particular about the quality of photos that get posted. If you don't have a professional photographer, make sure that you make the most out of Instagram filters. If you don't have a graphic designer on your team, use a free photo editing site like PicMonkey to create professional looking graphics.

There are pros and cons to sharing a link to your Instagram posts on Twitter. Let's talk about it! Find us on Twitter @ThinPigMedia.