Building Your Personal Brand On Instagram

Building Your Personal Brand On Instagram

#1 Video
Video is number 1 because I believe that it is going to be of major importance to Instagram users in the future.  With Instagram taking another move forward by expanding their video time to 60 seconds, there is more room to experiment and get creative with video. 60 seconds is a long time, much longer than 15 seconds when it comes to grabbing attention with story content.  Some of the greatest pieces of content in history are only 30 seconds long.  Get creative and be sure to start using the capability of video on Instagram.

#2 Embed Instagram Feed
If you have a blog site, it may be a good idea for you to consider embedding your Instagram feed to let others have an additional way to see your post stream.

#3 Mutual Photo Shares
You can connect with other people within your community by sharing their photos.  They in turn may do the same, making room for for both sides to grow followers.

#4 Track Your Stats
See what the best times are throughout the day when your posts are receiving the highest level of engagement.  A few good resources to check out are Statigram or Curalate.

#5 Integrate Your Social Profiles
You can post to other social media platforms using Instagram as a starting point. Link up your Facebook, Snapchat or Twitter and cross promote your social media accounts, leveraging each one to grow the other and expand your audience.

#6 Image Filters
The first step to any successful Instagram account is to know what story it is you want to tell.  Know your personal brand.  Your images are a reflection of who you are and you want them to appeal to your target audience on an emotional level.  This helps to increase connection and engagement.

Having a visual style to your images helps reveal your own personal brand. There’s a cool app called A Color Story that has a solid selection of filters you can use to give your followers a specific view on your brand imagery.

#7 Authenticity
What is being authentic all about on Instagram, anyway?  Well, it means being genuine.  You don’t want to force your posts or get too analytical about them.  Whatever you post should come from a real place within yourself, not just because you want to get more followers. Sometimes you may not want to use filters and just use the raw image.  As long as you express something authentic, people will connect.

#8 Schedule Your Content
Have a content schedule mapped out for yourself.  You don’t want to get robotic with it, especially if you are flowing with your Instagram in the here and now vein, but it’s not a bad idea to also consider weighing the option of seeing what the optimal times are for posting your content.  Your posts may have more engagements when you select specific times that increase the amount of eyeballs that will see what your posting.

#9 Leave Comments
No matter how many followers you have, you should always be down to connect and engage and you do that not only by liking other people’s photos or vids but also by leaving comments.  Always keep it real with people and stay humble whether you have 100 followers or 1 million.

#10 Know Your Niche
What do you specialize in?  What separates you from everyone else? Once you tap into that, drill deep with it so people know who and what you stand for.  Follow your own original voice, stay true to that because that’s what makes you unique and makes you stand out from a crowd.

#11 Hashtags
Use your hashtags in abundance and in accuracy.  You can cover 15 or more hashtags for a post and you can always delete them down after your post has been live for a couple of hours.  You don’t ever want to come off like spam so be careful how you use this tactic.