Instagram is one of the top social media platforms, with over 1 billion monthly active users. In addition, over 500 million people view Instagram Stories daily. This makes it a great platform to promote businesses. However, it can also be used for building a personal brand on Instagram.
When you develop a personal brand on Instagram, you can start influencing the decisions of your followers. This makes you an influencer, and you can land collaborations with contracts from various brands in your niche who want to reach your audience.
However, you need to put a lot of effort into building a personal brand on Instagram first. Here are the most important factors that you should consider while doing so.
1. Bio
Consider your bio as a window for Instagram users to understand you better. It should show them what your values are and help define who you are.
Try to craft a bio that describes you, but don’t go overboard. You shouldn’t try to market yourself there. Keep your bio short and crisp. A long bio where you keep tooting your own horn may be off-putting.
The Instagram bio also gives you the option of adding a link to your website or blog. Make optimum use of this and insert a link where people can head to discover more about you.
Lastly, you should consider inserting some keywords in your bio that can help your profile rank higher in search results. That can help you build a personal brand on Instagram.
2. Profile Photo
Your profile photo is one of the most important factors for building a personal brand on Instagram. Just like your bio, it serves the specific purpose of showcasing your personality and your love for things in your niche.
For instance, a person who’s trying to build a personal brand on Instagram in the travel niche will ideally use a profile photo from some exotic destination. Similarly, a photographer may use a photo of themselves with a camera.
Remember, the profile photo appears right above the bio, so it must complement whatever is stated in your bio.
Try to make your profile photo and bio unique. It’s this uniqueness that can intrigue people and may push them to follow you on social media. While this piece of information isn’t very big, it does help you stand out from the crowd.
3. Instagram Posts
The posts that you create matter a lot when it comes to building a personal brand on Instagram. They need to look personal, and yet, the images and videos must not look amateurish. This is why it’s crucial to polish your photography and post-processing skills. You could also consider hiring a personal photographer if you’ve got a large enough budget.
The posts must look visually appealing. To become successful on Instagram, you must do this because it’s a visual platform, and if your media doesn’t look good, no one will want to follow you.
However, the visuals aren’t the only things that matter in building a personal brand on social media. You also need to get your captions right. Your captions must complement the visuals in your Instagram posts and should engage your audience. You can also include calls-to-action (CTAs) in your captions to help push your followers to like or comment on your posts.
In addition to the quality of your posts, the quantity matters as well. You need to post regularly on the platform and build consistency. Post too much or too often, and your followers may find their feed overwhelmingly filled with your posts. Do the exact opposite, and they may stop noticing you at all.
You need to publish the right number of posts to keep your audience engaged yet interested in you. Ideally, you should consider posting on Instagram once a day. Not only does this help you remain relevant, but it also keeps you from flooding your audience’s feeds.
4. Hashtags
Hashtags are an integral part of Instagram and can come in very handy when you’re building a personal brand on Instagram.
You should try to use popular hashtags that are relevant to your niche in your posts. These hashtags can help Instagram users discover your content, and if they like it, they may start following you.
However, you need to be clever when you’re adding hashtags to your posts. Try finding hashtags that are popular but don’t have millions of posts. Your posts may get lost in this giant pool of posts, and you may not get enough traction.
On the other hand, there may be unpopular hashtags that hardly have any posts. You should avoid them as well.
Try finding ones where there are a few hundred thousand posts and use them in your posts. For conducting hashtag research, you can use tools such as Hashtagify.
In addition to that, you should consider creating branded hashtags. These can work as a great way of reinforcing your brand. Use these branded hashtags in all your posts and encourage your followers to use them as well.
When the hashtag gains traction, so does your personal brand. Additionally, those who follow this hashtag may start discovering your posts as well. If you’re successful in popularizing your branded hashtag, you may be able to get more followers too.
5. Instagram Stories and IGTV
As mentioned before, nearly 500 million people watch Instagram Stories on this social media platform daily. You can reach this massive audience through them and thus Stories are a very important part of becoming successful on Instagram.
The best part about Stories is that they don’t need to be as professional looking and can be more casual. You can also start live videos on Stories and engage with your followers in real-time.
Through Stories, you can share your latest updates without creating posts. Nearly 56% of users stick around until the end of 20 Stories posts. This means that you can easily hold the attention of your followers through them.
In addition to Instagram Stories, you should also consider using IGTV. Through this mode, you can easily create vertical videos of up to 60-minutes. While it isn’t as popular as Instagram Stories, it can help you with building a personal brand on Instagram. You needn’t create these videos regularly but can post them every once in a while.
6. Engagement
Engagement is crucial for success on any social media platform, and you need it for building a personal brand as well. You must engage your followers and respond to their comments as quickly and efficiently as possible.
The more you engage with them, the better your relationships with them will be. You must strive to respond to as many private messages from them as possible. Remember, the deeper your connections with them are, the more influence you’ll have over their decisions. And successful influencers always engage with their audiences.
By increasing your engagement, you will also become a great pick for brands looking to partner with influencers on Instagram. This is because brands typically look for influencers who have high engagement rates.
To increase the engagement on your posts, you should consider adding a CTA in your captions. You can help motivate your followers to comment and share the post by asking them to do so.
7. Partnering With the Right Brands
Partnering with the right brands is an important step in building a personal brand on Instagram. When you do so, you’ll have the opportunity to be a part of successful influencer marketing campaigns. And that can help you land better contracts from brands in the future.
Additionally, when you partner with great brands, you can get introduced to their audiences as well. This can help you increase your following size, thus helping you with building your personal brand even further.
In addition, through partnerships, you’ll also get some amazing content for your own Instagram account too. This will help you grow your engagement, reach, and personal brand as a whole too.
To find such influencer marketing campaigns, you can use iFluenz. There, you’ll be able to see campaigns posted by various brands and can apply to the ones you’re interested in.
Brands can seamlessly create campaigns on the platform, and you’ll be able to see all of the open campaigns. You can get in touch with the brands directly through the platform and then discuss the terms of the collaboration as well. This makes influencer marketing easy for you too.
Final Thoughts
Building a personal brand on Instagram is no easy task. You need to consistently publish stellar content that can engage your audience and captivate their imagination.
Communicate with your audience regularly to strengthen your relationships with them. Come up with a solid bio and add a link to your website or blog, as well. Make sure that your profile picture complements what’s stated in the bio. Lastly, partner with reputable brands to improve your brand even further.
What are the other factors that are crucial for building a personal brand on Instagram? Let us know in the comments.