Visual branding means how people see your business or service on Instagram. It is very important because, after a certain stage, your visual branding image decides the future of the business. In other words, it’s the main form of identity for your brand. People remember and identify Nike mainly for its visual brand. The tick symbol could easily make people identify when they see it on shirts, shoes or, anywhere. That’s how important visual branding is. It sits squarely in the minds of people. As a brand or business firm, what else will you expect other than that? And also it gives you a professional touch which is essential to convert viewers into customers. You should know 9 Instagram Visual Branding Strategies which help in improving your business.
On Instagram, you have an excellent opportunity to improve it for your business. Since Instagram is becoming a platform where people do not cross a single day without using it, you have high exposure for your brand. So what do you need to do to set up or improve your visual branding on Instagram? For that, we need to understand it a bit before we jump into the strategies.
What And Why
It’s not easy to have a good visual branding image. Many Brands struggle and fail in that. Yes, it doesn’t decide about the quality of your service or products, but this creates a first impression to the viewers that drives them to the next step. Impressions create more possibilities for the viewers to prefer your brand over others. As you already know about the exposure here, it’s obvious that you will have fierce competition from other brands. Visual branding will help you to stand out from your competitors. It might be an X factor for you in competitive situations.
Not just all these attention-seeking factors, but also visual branding shows what actually your brand is. It should be built based on the nature of your business and what you offer people. Ok, let’s get down to the strategies that will help you to improve your visual branding on Instagram.
Brand Values
As I said before, the most important thing is defining what you are. For every brand and its business, there is a core idea and motive along with a set of principles that define it. It’s basically the theme of your brand and what it is based on. So the more you define your brand, the more it will help you in branding it. So how do you define your brand values? For that, you have to ask yourself what your brand is and what it stands for. Maybe it sounds like a complicated process but it’s not. It’s the basics. There are some easy ways to define your brand effectively.
First, you have to put in all the things about your brand. Every small detail will contribute more to building your brand. Also, you have to note everything down on how your brand should appeal to the audience. If it’s still tough to put it in words, then visualize it. By taking your creative freedom, take any example you want. Because visuals like pictures will give you more ideas than to put up in words. Choose pictures related to your visualization. By that, you can create a mood board that will give you a pretty clear picture. It will not only give you clarity but also for others who you need to explain, can get it. There are many mood board tools available online that you can use and define your brand values. Then you have to set up your profile based on those values, where people can understand the whole picture of it when they see it.
Target Audience
It’s important for every brand to sense its target audience. Because there is no point in throwing a big net in a pond of small fish. You have to define your audience and have a clear idea about them. Without knowing it, you can’t establish a proper visual branding image. For example, your brand is about sports shoes, your target audience must be sportspeople and people who watch sports. So you can build your brand based on their likes and needs specifically. This will save you time and source and also boost your brand image. This will help your business to grow and will also easily resonate with your target audience when you design it based on them.
Designing
Now, this is an interesting part of visual branding because it basically deals with the visual level of your brand. Things we talked about before are the background process which all eventually leads to the designing process. This is the part where all creativity, art, marketing strategies meet. The design should echo the philosophy and the theme of your brand. There are some important factors in designing.
Colors
Colors are vital. They speak more than words when you find the perfect combination. It carries the theme of your brand. So you have to be careful and can take time in deciding the palette. Because every shade can change or create an impact on your brand. For example, the color and theme of Whatsapp are green. It emits harmony, freshness, growth, and positive action. It connects with the values of the app and resonates with users. Now imagine it being red, no you can’t take it. So that is how important colors are.
Font
Next is the font. The font style creates an instant impression from the users. Minimal and simple fonts mostly create a good impression but too professional fonts will make them feel like they are in the stone age. So you have to keep it minimal but also with a modern touch. These are some mostly used fonts when it comes to branding.
- Serif
- Modern
- Display
- Sans serif
Sans serif is one of the widely used fonts. Sites like Facebook, Linkedin use this font since it looks both modern and minimal.
Setup Profile
After deciding on the design the next step is to set up your Instagram profile based on it. Your profile should contain your brand value information in a short manner. Your profile is the area where people can know about your brand alone. So it’s advisable to set up based on it.
Display picture
Display pictures are the ones that show who you are. So it is evident that it should contain your brand logo. This will automatically give your audience an impression. Moreover, imprinting your logo in the minds of people is the basic and first to do rule of branding.
Bio
Bio is the area where you can add short information about your brand. It can be a slogan or tagline which actually has more impact than a basic bio. You can also add your link here.
Custom hashtag
Custom hashtags can give you more boost in reach in the long run. It also will be unique and help your brand marketing. Some hashtags like #redbullgivesyouwings #netflixandchill are the best examples. People can use your hashtags in your posts which means they are promoting your brand.
Feed Building
Your Instagram feed shows the quality of your brand to the audience. So building up your feed is essential for your visual branding. What’s the feed buildup? It’s the look of your profile in the posts area. The outlook of the posts should look good when a viewer goes through your profile. For this, you should have a consistent style and quality in posting. The first 12 posts in your feed are what most people will look into. So you also have to consider the outlook of the posts on top of the feeds that bring automatic likes from real Instagram users and give you more audience who can be converted into customers. So you can follow some styles like adding frames or using templates that sit with the theme of your brand. So you have to decide your posting style for your brand.
There are some posting techniques like install-grid where you can split a photo into 9 different grids and post it so that it will look like a single big picture in your feed. This will look appealing but you have to maintain that grid for some time until it’s not on the top posts of your feed. For example, brands like Adidas will use some templates that contain their brand and their tagline. It will look attractive as well as promote their brand. You can also use filters to the photos to make them aesthetically pleasing. You also have to follow those styles constantly. Too many different styles in posts look clumsy sometimes. So you have to decide the style based on your theme.
Highlights
The Highlights feature is useful for every Instagram user but for brands, it’s very handy. Because they serve you as extended bio and more like a ‘menu card’ for your brand. You have to craft it carefully and detailed in a way that acts as a guide. There are things you can add in highlights.
- Information about your brand and its history
- Your brand’s achievements and statistics
- The products and their price-lists
- The reviews and comments from customers and experts
- The FAQs and the answers
- Your contact information
These are the 9 strategies that help to improve your visual branding image on Instagram. You need to shape it cautiously and also be attractive to the viewers that do not cross your brand value.