Nowadays, Instagram is more than an image sharing source where you are focusing on your friends and family. It is now the biggest influencer platform where brands are spending big dollars on advertising.

While your copies and stories matter, you have to pay attention to your images too. As Instagram is an image-lead interest, people would be interested in learning more about what you have to say when you have a good enough (or bad enough) photos to catch their interest.

Quick example, if you are scrolling on the Explore page on Instagram and see two pretty sunset photos. You decided to click on both of them, the first one is from a curated feed with lots of sunsets, landscapes, and nature dwelling images. On the other hand, the other is from an account of a person who shares their random stuff, like ice-cream, snake, dog toys, and math problems that they couldn’t solve. Which account would you like to give it a follow? The first account would have a better chance of getting a follow from you, right?

But this is only a big picture of today’s lesson.

Image source: departmentofwandering.com

Three Components of Instagram Visual Branding

One:

FEEL & CONCEPT

Instagram branding is all about feelings. It’s what transforms the first-time interactor into a loyal follower. It is the way to grab your ideal audience’s attention and turns an indifferent audience into a trusting following who you have an influence over.

Ask yourself these questions:
1) What do you want your audience to feel when visiting your account? 
2) What messages or types of content do you want to share with your audience?
3) Is there any specific theme, concept, or items that you would want to use to gain your audience’s attention?

For example, is there a chic and vintage vibe you send, or do you want your followers to feel mesmerized and stunned when they see your high-quality photos? Do you want to attract someone who loves tattoos or flowers?

After answering the above questions, see what the most important elements are and what feel you want to send your followers, then make those feelings speak to your audience through your images and overall account by using the second and third components we are going to discuss next.

By keeping a consistent feel going, you will make it easier for your followers to know what to expect when they see your content. In this case, you want to know your feelings and the concept of your brand, which is your Instagram account.

Keeping the consistent feel and concept to the images will make people remember your content even before they see your name or your face.

Two:

COLOR PALETTE

What colors do you see most on your feed right now? Are these the colors you want to continue to show? Are there too many colors? Is there any color at all?

I have heard a lot of people out there who said that colores or the feed consistency wouldn’t make or break their account. But from my experience, it would break your account. Here is the thing, people who share those types of content without consistency are either already famous, have been in this industry for a longer time, showing their body part a lot, or happened to get famous without trying from viral content. They can share whatever they want because they already have a fanbase who is interacting with their account daily.

But if you are just starting or trying to make it to the next level, you have stick to the consistency in color. I know it’s hard. I was there too.

Color is an important part of building the right brand, as this is one of the biggest things that followers remember about you after leaving your feed. When you pick the right colors that work for you, and always find ways to organically incorporate them into your feed, your followers will remember you better. Also, this will make it easier when coming up with new content as you already know what colors to use and which ones to avoid.

You don’t need to use only a few colors, but what you should do is always have the same color spreading around your feed.

If your feed is too hard for you to be consistent with colors, you can use the same photo editing settings, filters, or presets to make the colors of your photos look more cohesive.

Three:

TYPOGRAPHY

Lastly, typography or fonts of your brand! 

The type of font you choose for your brand can be shown in your logo, digital writing content like quote images you share on your Instagram feed, IG Stories, highlight covers, or any other material that you will share in a text format.       

The type of font itself can convey the feeling of your brand as well.

•  Serif fonts are classic typography. This font is excellent if you want your brand to appear trustworthy, traditional, and like a little old school.
• Sans serif fonts give a more minimal and modern feel to brands.
• Script typography refers to cursive handwriting. This type of fonts can add a luxurious or feminine feel to your brand, depending on the style you choose.
• Display fonts have eccentric and variable designs than the simple, relatively restrained typefaces generally used for body text. This types of fonts can make a bold statement and add your unique brands spin to make people remember. 

Picking a font will tie everything together. Remember, when we discussed your Brands voice, try to find a set of fonts that look like the voice you are talking with and blends in with your brand’s feels. Try using only two-three fonts throughout your Instagram feed, to make it more consistent and memorable. The font you use will help make your account look like the voice you are communicating with your audience. 

Typography Images from @nikki.cruz

That’s it! I hope this blog post about Branding 101 (Part Two) will help you create the right brand. Remember that your images are as important as your stories you are sharing if you decide to go for the Influencer route. 

Having eye-catching images, the harmonious color scheme, and fonts on your feed will give you a better chance of gaining new followers and more brand opportunities. These three components will help your brand achieve the goals you have set from last week’s strategy lesson. 

As an influencer, you want to make sure you will attract both followers and brands. By having your strategy put together and have it handy, you can re-read it whenever you need to or revise it as your brand grows.

There are five components I am going to talk about, which are your audience, story, mission, vision, and voice.

If you missed last week’s lesson: Profile Perfect, make sure to check it out.

Five Compositions in Instagram Branding Strategy

One: Your Audience

IDENTIFY THE RIGHT AUDIENCE

Knowing who you are talking to is the most important step when figuring out your branding strategy. It might seem obvious who you are talking to, but you need to be more specific on the exact person so that your message can resonate more. Answer these questions to help you find out your specific audience.

Are they male or female?

How old are they?

What hobbies do they have?

Where do they like to shop for clothes?

What’s there dream travel destination?

Do they have kids or a family?

The more questions you ask and the more specific your answers, the more accurate your audience will be.

Answering these questions, or more, in your audience’s shoes will get your creative juices flowing and allow you to really understand who you are speaking. Once you know the person you are talking to, you can then start conveying the other parts of your brand.

Two: Your Story

CREATE AN EMOTIONALLY CONNECTING BRAND STORY

The story of your brand is when your audience starts to connect with you. It’s the point at which a person becomes a fan or stays a one time customer.

Your story has to convey a feeling that your audience can attach themself. The story must say how you got started and why you do what you do. Be as specific as possible here, too, as the more details you write, the more chances your audience can connect with you.

Your brand story should consist of three parts: 1) Your intention 2) The problems your followers are facing, and 3) How you can help solve those problems.

Susan Gunelius is a 20-year marketing veteran and President & CEO of a marketing communications company stated in her Forbes article that “Brand stories are not marketing materials. They are not ads, and they are not sales pitches. Brand stories should be told with the brand persona and the writer’s personality at center stage. Boring stories won’t attract and retain readers, but stories brimming with personality can.”

Three: Your Mission

BE CLEAR ON WHAT YOU ARE DOING TODAY

Your brand mission is what you are doing today. What actions have you already taken and are implementing in your brand?

Once you have a clear idea of your audience and know your brand story, next, you will need to create a mission to make sure your brand is creating consistent content that represents your brand’s current actions.

To make it easier to understand, the mission acts as the purpose behind what you try to accomplish every day. It’s where your audience can understand why you are doing something and how they can be a part of it. Your mission can be as simple as sharing makeup looks to help your audience look and feel more confident about themself.

Make your mission clear, meaningful, and straightforward so that you can tackle it each day.

Four: Your Vision

KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO BECOME TOMORROW

Your vision is different from your mission, as it is the intention behind your brand. It’s what you strive to become tomorrow. It can be goals that you want to achieve tomorrow or in the future. Think of it as something you look to see your brand growing towards and can visualize your brand becoming in the future. Having a great vision will allow your brand to evolve and grow. List down both strengths and weaknesses of your brand to write your vision so that you can have a better chance of achieving it.

One good example of a vision can be building a community of 10K or more strong-minded women who love putting makeup on as a therapy within five years.

A quick, one or two sentences will be short enough to remember and long enough to keep you on track toward your success. Your vision statement can be changed over time as you develop. Revisit it often to see how you are progressing toward your goals.

Five: Your Voice

FIND A VOICE THAT WORKS FOR YOUR BRAND AND AUDIENCE

When it comes to branding, your voice is how your audience will hear what you have to say. It’s the method in which you share how your message will be delivered. Think of the voice of your brand as a person that represents your brand. Is your voice serious and straight to the point, or is it fun and light? When writing content, think of the words you use in your text. How long are your sentences? How do those words make you feel and want to do? Do you feel happy and excited or bored and sleepy?

Make sure to keep your voice consistent across all content you create, as this gives a more human-like experience to your audience. It will make your audience think that they are talking to the same person and feel more comfortable when reading your content. Having an inconsistent voice can confuse your audience and will distract from your brand’s overall message.

Instagram Accounts mentioned in this post:

@muaddibthecat | @emcosmetics | @michellephan | @eggieshop | @imjennim | @ellenvlora

This week we will go a little deeper on how to make your Instagram stand out in the Instagram crowd. We will talk tactics and some fun creative processes that you can apply to improve your account visibility.

Why don’t we get right into today’s lesson: Profile Perfect.

Seven Ways To Perfecting Your Instagram Profile 

One: Include all the details mentioned last week + Targeted Keywords

If you don’t know, Instagram only allows 150 characters for your bio section. You have to curate the best words that will represent what you do and attract the right audience. One of the things you can do to add extra keywords is to put it in the name field. Be aware that you can only put 30 characters in the name field. 

Two: Account type: Business or Creator 

If you are setting your account as personal, you have to switch it now to either business or creator. As it allows you to access your Instagram Stats, where you can use this information to understand your audience or include them when pitching brand deals.

Three: Fun fonts and special characters 

If you would like your Instagram Bio to show your creativity, you can have fun with unique fonts that represent your brand. I recommend using IGFonts.io to help you generate text fonts that you can copy and paste into your Instagram bio.

If you are looking to add some special characters like a black and white smiley face (☻) or a floral heart (❦), you can use Copychar.cc to find and copy special characters to your clipboard. Click or tap on a character, and it will be copied to your clipboard.

Four: Typing Hacks

If you put a space at the end of the last character of the line before the line break, it will not work. 

If you want to add line breaks into your bio, you can write your bio on the desktop to allow you to put line breaks. Or you can use the website like linebreaks.igrm.me or later app to do that for you. 

Five: Highlight Cover

By organizing or using on-brand covers for your highlights, your Instagram account will look more professional. It will make your account as a whole be more cohesive and aligned with your aesthetic.

Six: Brand your Hashtag 

Creating your brand’s hashtag like #InfluencerTipsTuesday I post every Tuesday, is a good way for people to remember you and make it easier to navigate your specific content from the clickable link shown in your bio. 

Seven: Call to action

Call to action is a must when it comes to your Instagram bio. You want to be straightforward and let your followers know what you want them to do. Putting an emoji in front and behind the “Call to action” phase to gain attention is also a good practice to be doing. 

Instagram Accounts mentioned in this post:

@curatedbymollie | @vintagefelling | @fromplantsbeauty | @shopbando | @headstandsandheels | @tezza | @thegreylayers

Seven Keys to Best Instagram First impressions

ONE: YOUR HANDLE

Make sure people can read your handle. 

When I recruit Influencers myself for campaigns, I often saw weird/ unprofessional looking handles, this is a first red flag, that I wouldn’t try to approach them as I don’t see the professionalism in them, and this doubted me for a smooth collaboration. 

You have to make sure you include words that describe what you offer or use your name for your handle, not random words, letters, or numbers that have no meaning to what your account has to offer. 

TWO: YOUR NAME

What is your name?

I don’t particularly appreciate when people don’t include their name on their profile because I don’t know what to call them. If you don’t have your name on your profile, please put it down ASAP. Showing your name in your profile can help you develop a deeper relationship with your audience. Brands also know who they are working with and will remember you as a person.

THREE: IS IT A SECRET?

Set your account to public.

If you set your account for private, potential followers and brands wouldn’t be able to engage with you and see what you have to offer. Setting your profile to public status is the best first step that people will decide on if they want to follow you or not. 

By having your profile private, if someone chooses to follow you, they might decide to unfollow later once they find out that they have no interest in your content. 

FOUR: YOUR PROFILE PHOTO

Show your pretty face.

Don’t be shy! Show your face so people will remember you quickly! Unless you are trying to grow your brand for digital or physical products, you can use your logo on your profile picture instead of your face.

For influencers who mainly share your passion and work through online content like pictures and videos, try to use the image of your headshot or half body that appears friendly and welcoming. Make sure that it is bright and can resonate with your content as well.

 FIVE: YOUR CONTENT

How does your feed look?

Does your content look good or just meh? Do you personally like your Instagram feed? 

If your answer is no, things need to be changed starting now. Even though you might have heard a lot that you don’t need perfect Instagram pictures to be successful on social media but take a look at someone who has already made it, how does their IG account look?

As Instagram is a curated source for beautiful imagery, when you are serious about making it a source of your income, you need to pay attention to what you put in front of people.

You could still show raw moments and the real behind the scenes once in a while on your feed, but you have to stay firm on keeping your social presence on the perfect side.

Again, try to think back on why you are following certain accounts and not every account you encounter. Make your account look like the account you want to follow.

SIX: WHAT DO YOU OFFER? 

Tell them what you do.

Sometimes, having good looking IG pictures is not going to do it, you should include what you offer in your bio too. People often get confused and don’t know why they should follow you or work with you unless you specify it. 

You can write one short phrase to describe what you offer. 

Also, take a look at the category of your account and choose the option to identify yourself either as a digital creator, blogger, model, public figure, or anything that best matches your business. 

 SEVEN: YOUR CONTACT INFO

How can people reach you

If you want to make money or get gifted opportunities from brands you love, you have to make sure that you include your contact information like email on your Instagram bio. 

Make sure your email sounds good too! Try not to use the email you have created a long time ago that includes random words and numbers that have nothing to do with your influencer career.

JUST FOR FUN

If you treat your Instagram for fun, you will not have a system to strive for success.

I want to be clear that I’m not saying that you won’t be successful. You will be one day, but you will not become successful sooner than you are supposed to be.

If you are willing to wait, it is okay for me. But is it okay for you?