Why Instagram Is the Key To Establishing Your Brand
Why Instagram is the Key to Establishing Your Brand | Breezing Through
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Why Instagram is the Key to Establishing Your Brand | Instagram
Personally, Instagram is my favorite social media platform. It is where I spend the most time and it is the platform I know the best. But I know that other people don't feel the same way about it. There are other people who are intimidated by it and aren't sure how to use it. It is much different than Twitter or Facebook and the algorithm is constantly changing.
While I won't go into detail about how to use Instagram and how to work with the algorithm, not against it, I do want to talk about why it is important for your branding and how it can help grow your business.
Why Instagram is the Key to Establishing Your Brand | Branding Your Business
No matter what kind of business you have, you need to brand that business. A blog, e-commerce site, lifestyle website, brick & mortar, consulting, all need branding. It is how other people learn about your business and identify you and what you do. In order to do brand you business, you need to be Google-able. However, you don't want other people to control what those results are. One of the best ways you can do this is by creating social media accounts that you control.
Why Instagram is the Key to Establishing Your Brand | How to Start
In order to start, you need to create an Instagram account. Personally, I think it's best if you can get a username that is the same as your website and other social media platforms. That way people always know how to find you, no matter where they are looking. Then you need pictures. These don't have to be of you or necessarily what your business is about. There are lots of places to get stock photos, but I will talk about that on another day! If you do want to have pictures of yourself, go do a photo shoot. Grab a camera, it can be your phone, and a friend and take a bunch of picture in good lighting. But that is the easy part.
Next you need text for your pictures. You don't want to upload pictures without any context. Again, the pictures and the text, don't have to be related. But you do want the text to be related to your business. This can be broad, but you always want to be able to relate it back to your brand.
In my mind, the hardest part is the hashtags. You can use up to 30 hashtags per Instagram post. I think it is best to use all 30 and you should be strategic about those hashtags. So you need to figure out what those hashtags are. I've created a freebie for you to figure that out. You can download that here.
My advice for deciding on hashtags is the ones you use should come from a pool of images that don't exceed 500,000 and larger than 1,000. This will ensure that your content is seen by people who really should be seeing it.