7 Ways To Increase Brand Awareness On Instagram

Instagram, the photo sharing social website, has been growing rapidly since its creation, back in 2010. Today, it boasts of an insane 300 MILLION users, with a record of 2.5 million ‘like' button clicks per day! It has long surpassed its elder cousin, Twitter, and today it is one of the most widely used media for communication. This makes it a powerful tool for any strategy that involves you wanting to reach around the globe, such as marketing and branding. To read about how you can use Facebook and other social networks to enhance your marketing strategy, check out our article on 5 Ways to Use Facebook for Marketing.

Now that you know all that, read on below to find out how you can use Instagram to kick start the branding campaign of your dreams!

1) Interact With Everyone.

Before you can start endorsing your brand and your Instagram page, you need to do some quid-pro-quo. Always remember, if you expect others to take out the time to check out what you have to say, they expect the same. So, you need to be VERY active on Instagram, if you really want to utilise it for branding. ‘Like' other related posts, leave comments and communicate with popular account holders. Find popular hashtags and like away. Create a social presence around these communities and you'll find that you are exposing your name more and more to that community and all it's followers.

2) Create Your Community Around An Attractive Hashtag.

The idea is to create a hashtag which is relevant to your product and also extremely actionable. It should communicate with your followers and interact with them. If you can help you in promoting your brand without having to make any extra effort. A great example of this strategy would be when Nike launched their #ChooseYourWinter campaign last November. The timing was perfect and the hashtag got 350,000 reposts in no time at all. Create a catchy hashtag and sit back and relax because your followers will do all your work for you!

3) Targeted Posting.

Your Insta-Success primarily depends on how captivated your followers are. This you can achieve in two ways –

i) Posting ONLY material relevant to your theme.

ii) Posting high quality photos and videos of the same.

Remember that your followers are there because they are interested in the theme you created your account around. Stick to it, and you'll find yourself becoming a niche account for your users. No one likes an Instagram account which is unfocused and all over the place. Use HQ photos and videos(you don't want to hear the dreaded “My toaster has better resolution” comment), and you'll have mastered the art of targeted posting!

4) Promote Your Account EVERYWHERE!

This is kind of self explanatory, but it is also essential for the success of any social network campaign. You need to get your account as popular as possible and the secret to this is promoting it well. Ask your friends, colleagues, partners, employees and everybody else who has a positive relationship with your brand to help promote your account wherever feasible. Ask them to include a link to your Instagram profile on all their mass communications. This goes a long way in promoting and publicising your Instagram account and increasing your total number of followers.

5) Make Use Of Everything Instagram Has To Offer.

In the past 5 years, since it's conception, Instagram has made several changes to it's algorithm and has added several tools which can help you improve your pictures.

• A couple of years ago, Instagram released a set of Professional Business Tools to help brands analyse the performance of their posts. These tools are available for paid advertisements and include impressions, reach, engagements and ad insights. These tools are great for young business trying to analyse their business models.
• Find and use all the filters that Instagram has to offer. Manipulate all your photos to create the most visually compelling result. Some of the most popular Insta filters available for free are Valencia, Lo-Fi and X-Pro.

Keep yourself up to date with all the new tools the Instagram team keep on adding. If you know everything available, you can utilise it to the full extent. Stay Insta-Smart!

6) Go Pro With Analytical Tools.

This one just for all you guys who are looking to take your business to the next level by using professional online tools to analyse and optimize your Instagram Branding Campaign. There are several online options available for you if you are looking to automate your Instagram campaign. Two online tools I personally LOVE using are Instagress and Iconosquare. You can use these tools for a wide variety of tasks such as viewing all stats related to your profile, automate your likes and comments and increase your followers. Give them a try, and soon you'll find yourself giving your business an all new professional look.

7) Don't Overpost.

I know it's tempting to post and repost every good thing you find on the Internet and get rich on ‘likes', but from the branding point of view, over posting on your company account is a big Insta-no-no. Nobody wants their Insta feed cluttered and full of only your posts. That is when your posts stop becoming fun and informative and become annoying and boring. Remember not to over-post, or else you'll find your subscribers decreasing in no time at all!

Instagram gains more and more popularity even now, as you finish reading this article. More and more people are taking to sharing and viewing pictures and videos! Utilise this great social networking tool to build your brand and spread its awareness until you connect with each and every person interested in what you are offering!

For more information, click on www.fmiguild.org

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