In today's modern business world, social media plays a vital role in enhancing brand visibility. Customers spend more time on social media during the day, and up to 72% of all internet users are active on social media. These figures also show that with 936 million active Facebook users globally, one billion YouTube users and 270 million active Twitter users, there are presently over 2.35 billion monthly active Instagram users. These facts and figures indicate that Instagram would be the ideal social media platform to increase brand exposure in the internet space.
The facts and figures below by selfstartr.com show why your brand would turn to Instagram versus Facebook.
There is a downward trend in the reach of organic marketing on Facebook that has decreased by 63% over the last four years. There is a 115% increase in the scope of organic marketing within Instagram.
There are as much as double the users of Instagram that regularly use specific social media platforms such as Facebook.
Compared to Facebook, one Instagram fan has 58% more engagement on social media.
When sharing a post on Facebook, only 6% of followers could see the particular post, while on the other hand, on Instagram, it is 100%.
The above facts and figures also indicate that the Instagram social media platform would be the ideal social media platform to enhance the brand's visibility in the online space.
The brand tips listed below help you make your brand more visible in the Instagram social media platform.
Attractive visuals are vital to your brand recognition on Instagram.
Your eye-catching Instagram post motivates the follower to keep an eye on it while the follower scrolls through the Instagram posts, and that would help enhance brand visibility.
The style and quality of the Instagram post should be consistent. There must be a unique style and quality in the development of Instagram social media content. The unique style of the social media content enables its followers to recognise it naturally. The consistent quality of the content keeps the brand's memory on top of the mind among the millions of brands visible on Instagram. The uniformity in style and quality of the Instagram post improves brand visibility very effectively.
Choose a uniform colour scheme for each post and use it whenever possible. When creating Instagram content, use the mix of brand-themed colours as this allows the follower to keep the memory of the brand on the top of the mind among the millions of brands visible on Instagram. Consistent colours for social media content makes social media content more attractive and facilitates brand recognition.
Use the same filter style for every post when using filters to make the brand more recognisable to followers. Do not use much text in your Instagram post and do not overload the post with it. Create images to attract the followers' eyes with less text.
According to social media strategist Rohit Bhargava’s “The Five Rules of Social Media Optimisation”, attractive social media content makes it possible to increase social media engagement, in other words, it makes it possible to increase shares, likes, and comments from social media content. He says that engaging social media content motivates followers to share it and the specific process makes it possible to increase the brand's visibility, particularly on the Instagram social media platform.
Eye-catching social media content on Instagram motivates the follower to comment on it, tag on it and the particular process makes the brand visible to millions of followers on Instagram. Bhargava underlined that social media content must be shareable, and that means it has to be appealing and eye-catching. Particularly being one of the photo-based social media platforms, attractive social media content makes it shareable on Instagram. When all is said and done, sharable content makes the brand more visible on Instagram.
One of the brands which has mastered the above-mentioned brand tips is Nike. Nike uses its slogan "Just Do It" aggressively on online and offline advertising platforms and the unique consistency enables social media followers to recognise the brand without the images.
Hire a professional content maker
If you want your Instagram post to be placed in the eyes of the Instagram followers, then make it more attractive. A professional content creator will be able to create a more engaging Instagram post that would steal the hearts of the followers. Use a professional photographer to take high quality photos that make your brand more visible.
As Instagram is one of the photo-based social media platforms, the quality and attractiveness of the photos play an essential role in enhancing brand visibility. A professional photographer and content creator make Instagram social media content more attractive to followers, and this enables the follower to share the particular content in high frequency. This makes it possible to improve the brand's visibility more efficiently.
Customise your posts
The most common error you make is to post the same post across all social media platforms. To increase social media engagement and enhance brand visibility, the ideal way is to customise your post according to the type of followers of the social media platform and the uniqueness of the particular social media platform.
According to https://www.oberlo.com, 32% of Instagram users are between 18 and 24 years of age. The particular statistics show that Instagram followers are mostly teenagers and therefore, create content that is appropriate to that particular demography.
Since 32% of Instagram followers are between 18 and 24, use teen models in the Instagram post as that makes them more presentable for teens. Create the post according to their culture and behaviour, especially as teenagers are kind of extroverted, as they like to socialise more and be friendly and happy. Create an Instagram post that would deem more attractive and joyful to teens.
A hashtag (#) is one of the most effective social media strategies that can be used on Instagram to raise brand visibility and increase social media engagement.
The hashtag is unique to Instagram. Using a hashtag, you may be able to make your brand visible for millions of followers on Instagram. For example: #love (used in 700 million posts), #instagood (used is 300 million posts), or #tbt (Throwback Thursday) or you can create your own hashtag according to your type of business. For e.g. #realstate.
With Instagram, you can create a contest that would, for instance, reward the best photo. Create a hashtag for the campaign and invite followers to share their photos under the particular hashtag. This allows you to make your brand visible to millions of Instagram followers around the world.
Bhargava points out that the number of hashtags improves social media optimisation. In addition, it says that hashtags allow the brand to gain more visibility to millions of followers, particularly on Instagram. When it comes to Instagram, a hashtag is one of the most popular social media tactics and the brand can improve exposure on Instagram by using more hashtags. The most suitable number of hashtags for an Instagram post would be 30 and by using more hashtags, one has the ability to interact with millions of followers on Instagram.
Get entertaining and inspiring
Post Instagram content that is entertaining and inspiring, and which would enable you to align your brand with millions of Instagram followers around the world. Inspirational posts such as those that spark engagement with better causes (cause marketing) allows you to increase brand visibility on Instagram and increase social media engagement.
Adidas, a major sports brand, engages with its millions of Instagram followers through inspirational social media content, calling it "impossible is nothing." Adidas’ Instagram content has some of the best content for any brand looking to improve brand exposure on Instagram, based on creating very engaging and entertaining content.
People need to be inspired and entertained and therefore, create Instagram posts according to the behavioural patterns of followers which allows the brand to increase brand visibility on Instagram as one of the organisation's marketing goals, and thus improving brand visibility.
Engage
Always engage with your followers and other users, and utilise approaches that involve competitions. It is also important to also be engaged with other users such as industry influencers, bloggers and through partnerships. Integrating Instagram influencers is another unique social media strategy through your Instagram profile and implementing this will enable your brand to reach millions of followers of that particular influencer.
(The writer is a marketing consultant)
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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.