I’ve managed Instagram accounts for a wide variety of brands, as well as for A-list celebrities. Here’s my advice on how to use Instagram to build your brand as a blogger.
Tell Your Story
Ideally, your Instagram page should reflect your personality. Every image and caption you post can help you tell your story in a way that makes your target audience want to be a part of it.
Let’s say you’re an aspiring mommy blogger. If you post about the everyday entertaining dramas of raising children, other mothers will probably laugh at, empathize with and relate to your page.
Shed The Backward Mentality
I’ve noticed that many marketing professionals look at Instagram primarily as a way to motivate people to buy specific products or use certain services. But I believe that setting out with this intent is usually backward. Instead, focus on using your content to provide value to your audience. That value involves making people laugh, cry, smile, learn something or connect with you.
In my experience, when you focus on providing value instead of monetizing Instagram, monetization follows.
Be Authentic
The more real you are, the more likely you are to connect with people. If you claim to be living a specific lifestyle that your Instagram feed and your actions don’t reflect, your audience will likely notice and see you as a fraud. Aim to communicate using a consistent, authentic tone of voice. You can aspire to be a car blogger, but you still have to be real. The key is marrying the two goals.
Instead of claiming that you own cars you can’t yet afford, you can instead document a test drive of your dream car and share some funny or educational information about it. Your followers can track your story. Instagram is simply a communication tool — it can help you visually communicate how you’re trying to manifest yourself.
Seven More Tips For Aspiring Instagrammers
1. Find Your Voice
Who do you want to become? What lifestyle do you want to live? Once you answer these questions, you’ve identified your social media voice.
Let’s say you want to become a professional travel blogger who travels the world for free. From there, you have to learn how to communicate like one.
2. Create Your Niche And Communicate It Clearly
What kind of words would the person you want to become use? Ideally, they’ll use language that communicates their purpose. For a travel blogger, this could be words like “wanderlust,” “indulge” and “opulence.”
Create your own brand vocabulary. This way, you can fine-tune your voice while ensuring that it’s consistent. Is your brand high-end? Who is your target audience? Use language that reflects your brand status and resonates with your target audience.
What type of imagery should you post? A travel blogger could post images of their luxury travel experiences. Use imagery that represents your brand, and create a mood board using imagery from your competitors as inspiration. Throw in some behind-the-scenes footage too.
3. Optimize Your Bio
Upgrade your bio with a sentence that reflects your branding. Include key hashtags for your main skills and location. For example, a travel blogger’s bio could read: “Let’s get wander-fully lost. #Miami #TravelBlogger.” Remember to include your email address so that people interested in collaborating with you can get in touch.
4. Make Your Account Visually Appealing
Adopt and commit to a unique style that creates an attractive Instagram account. You can create visual patterns on your feed based on how frequently you post quotes or by alternating between light and dark images. You can even choose a cool filter.
5. Plan Ahead
Life happens. Doing your social media content planning last minute doesn’t work. Use an app like Preview or Planoly to ensure that all of your intended images flow beautifully before posting and to schedule your posts. I recommend scheduling posts at least three to four days ahead of time.
6. Hack The Instagram Algorithm
Instagram rates your popularity on how many likes and comments your posts receive, so aim to accomplish these three things:
• Build a targeted following that’s interested in your content. Pinpoint your three closest competitors, and follow their followers. Your competitors share the same target audience, meaning their followers are likely to be interested in your page too, and are more likely to engage with your posts.
• Post at peak times. Peak times can be identified via the Insights feature in Instagram. I’ve found that 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. are generally good times to post.
• Know your hashtags. This is so important that it deserves its own section.
7. Use Hashtags To Expand Your Reach
Hashtags can help you reach new potential followers. Many Instagram users follow specific hashtags. When you use hashtags that your target audience members follow, they may see your content pop up in their news feeds despite the fact they don’t follow you yet. Research the hashtags that your competitors and target audience are using.
Then, adopt what I call “the Sophie rule.” For every image you post, use 10 major hashtags (those with more than a million results), 10 medium-popular hashtags and 10 niche and location-specific hashtags. This will help you get more views on your posts.
To build your brand on Instagram, start with the basics: Decide who you want to be and what you want to achieve. Create a consistent voice that’s authentic yet aspirational. Tell a story that delights, interests, educates or entertains. Follow these tips, and Instagram can help you build your brand and take your social media marketing to the next level.
