Social media has earned its rightful place as a very effective method for businesses to build brand awareness.
Brands can use Instagram to build their profiles and increase their footprint among target audiences simply because, in the current context, Instagram is among the biggest social media platforms with more than one billion monthly active users.
More interestingly, 90% of users of Instagram are 35 years of age and below, which is great for brands aspiring to address the needs and wants of an upwardly mobile and affluent target audience.
So, what do you need to do to boost your brand awareness using Instagram?
Maintain Consistency with the Personality of the Brand
Many marketers tend to think of Instagram as a typical social media platform where users seek to be entertained with posts that focus on being beautiful or funny.
Indeed, most personal Instagram accounts are geared to do exactly that, but business accounts need to add value to their followers far more consistently.
The posts that businesses publish on Instagram should be consistent with the brand image and personality so that they can reinforce the image and reputation of the brand.
For example, if a business is selling medical diagnostic equipment, they would do well to maintain the tone of the posts on Instagram with that of the industry and not start posting funny memes.
It does not mean that brands have to come across as cold and impersonal.
Indeed, the very reason why brands take to social media is that they could be more informal in their messaging than what they would usually have been able to do on their websites.
Social media helps brands come across as human so that they can vibe better with their target audiences.
Make Strategic Use of Hashtags
Given the flood of posts on the Instagram feed of a typical user, it is quite likely that he would miss out on viewing the post.
Because hashtags represent the only way users can search for content on Instagram, it is easy to understand the critical importance of using the right hashtags on your posts.
However, it is very important not to overuse or abuse hashtags as it will lead to a negative fallout with users.
When using hashtags, you need to be strategic for the best impact.
Here is a link to learn how to use hashtags on Instagram.
Some call the approach to be STRICT, where the term is an acronym for Specific, Targeted, Relevant, Innovative, Concise, and Thoughtful.
If you have recently started your Instagram marketing, you may not have a large enough follower base to drive enough traffic to your website.
Using the services of digital marketing agencies like Blastup can help to boost the number of your real Instagram followers.
Worthy reading: How to buy Instagram likes that are real and automatic
Choose Images Carefully
The success of Instagram is largely due to the fact that it was the first social media platform to be completely visually-oriented.
As a result of this, Instagram users pay great attention to the quality and composition of the images, which makes it very important for businesses to choose the right kind and quality of images to post on their Instagram accounts.
The use of images makes it easier for businesses to build brand awareness, and they can promote their products without appearing to be too pushy.
In stark comparison to long-winded text descriptions, picture posts can say a lot without a single word needed to be written.
Brands need to be very careful when selecting the images so that they represent the brands best image.
Stills and videos should preferably be taken by professionals to ensure that they are composed well, and there is no lack of clarity.
Videos are also in great demand by Instagram users as they can be used to easily understand how to do various things.
According to https://www.searchenginejournal.com, video posts receive double the engagement compared to other types of posts on Instagram.
Create and Maintain a Posting Schedule
In addition to ensuring that the brand posts are consistent in their visual representation and tone with that of the brand personality, businesses also need to maintain a regular posting schedule.
The right posting schedule will depend on your sector, however, regardless of whether you are posting several times daily or weekly, make sure that you follow a regular schedule.
By being consistent, your followers will be able to look out for your content on certain days and times, and it will be easier for you to engage them than depending on the user to do hashtag searches to look for your content.
It can be easy to think that you can generate a lot of content without much effort, and you start with a bang by posting quality content frequently.
However, to do so consistently over a long period can be quite tough, so it is better that you make a realistic assessment of your content generation capabilities.
It will help you not to overpromise and then disappoint your followers by delivering less.
There are quite a few social media content management tools that you can take a look at to make your life easier.
Leverage the Power of Instagram Stories
A copycat feature of Snapchat, Instagram Stories have a life of only 24 hours but have the capability of boosting brand awareness and engagement significantly.
Instagram Stories have become extremely popular as they permit businesses to stay on top of the minds of their followers in a more fun and engaging way.
Another reason to use Instagram Stories is that they enable brands to make a bigger impact as the Stories appear right on the top of the feeds of followers, and there’s even a colorful ring around it to signify that it is a new Story.
Stories help brands to stay more visible to their target audience.
Conclusion
The immense popularity of Instagram makes it the perfect platform for businesses to promote their brands.
The visual orientation of Instagram makes it immensely popular with the young generation who are more ready to experiment with new products and services.
Used strategically businesses can use Instagram to boost awareness of their brands and convert followers to loyal customers over time.
Here is an additional resource article which talks about Instagram likes and how to get more engagement on your Instagram posts. Its well worth reading and has some great content.
