The main goal with any visual branding strategy is to know exactly who your audience is. Without this core understanding, you’ll miss out on opportunities to show people engaging content about your business that they can actually relate to. One of the key players in visual branding strategy is (you guessed it) Instagram.

So, how do you get your followers to relate to your Instagram content? Well, you have to be purposeful with your posts! Because—let’s be honest—no one wants to read or view something that doesn’t feel relatable or put together deliberately. If something doesn’t capture our attention, or even if it feels random, we’re just going to keep scrolling.

As experts in visual branding, we’ve spent a lot of time fine tuning our Instagram approach, and we have three tips to help you with your own Instagram content.

Tip 1: Visual Content:

Visual content—the crème de la crème of Instagram. Truly, people go to Instagram because it’s a platform built on visual content. That’s why it is so, so important for your Instagram feed to have quality visuals. Especially as a small business, you want to represent yourself in the best way possible. 

We promise, your followers notice the difference between an Instagram feed with well-thought out visual content and one that’s seemingly lackluster. Set yourself up for success and differentiate your business from all the others by creating purposeful content. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: We highly recommend working with a brand photographer.  The more enhanced your photographs are, the more organized and credible you appear to your dream client. 

Use visual content to your advantage, and draw in your followers with a curated feed. Show them the content they’re looking for, and reel them in for future posts. Once you’ve nailed down purposeful visuals, your Instagram will become a cohesive landing point for your followers, and your business will take off on its path toward growth.

Tip 2: Textual Content:

While we recognize that Instagram is an image-heavy powerhouse, it’s still worth mentioning the need for textual content. Using graphics or posts made on Canva is a great way to break up some of the photographs that live on your feed. 

So, maybe you have six images posted in a row, and you want to mix things up a bit on the content-front. Try creating a Canva post with textual content! You can be extremely conscious of the textual content you share, choosing to highlight specific blog posts or current services where maybe you’re offering a discounted deal. You can also create a graphic that emphasizes a particular product you want to highlight to your followers. This way, the keywords you’re hoping to show off will be more immediately noticeable.

Another way to use textual content is for any Instagram reels you might be making. You can create a Canva post with whatever text that’s relevant to the reel, and make it so it’s essentially a cover slide for the reel. By doing this, you can make sure your feed stays consistent in terms of your chosen color schemes and font styles. Always, always, always, consistency is key!

Tip 3: Scheduling Posts:

Part of a purposeful social media plan is sharing regular content. Remember, your followers want to see your posts! To keep them engaged, you need a well-developed plan that includes a posting schedule. What kind of relevant content can you share, and when should you share it? 

The good news is that there are tons of useful social media tools you can use to help you with consistent posting. We’re huge fans of Planoly. A great perk: You can use the app on your phone or desktop version—so there’s a lot of flexibility there with accessing the content you need to post. You’ll just link your Instagram accounts to your Planoly account, for example, and it’s smooth sailing from there.

With scheduled content, this doesn’t necessarily mean you need to post at the same time every single day. It’s more so that you should be scheduling regular posts to be shared each day. In fact, it might be beneficial to do a little research to see what the peak engagement times are for the certain demographic you’re hoping to engage. 

As long as you’re posting consistently, you’ll be able to keep growing your following, which means growing your business. Aim for at least one grid post a day and about 3-5 Instagram stories a day. The more content your followers can regularly engage with, the more likely they are to convert to loyal consumers. There is such a thing as “too much” when it comes to posting, though, so always be purposeful about what you’re sharing!

Conclusion:

You want your small business to have a distinct style that shows you truly mean business, and your Instagram profile is one way to make this happen in our highly digital world.

Ideally, you’ll develop a plan to ensure all your social media content is excellent, and that you’re the one your clients should go to and not the competitors.  If coming up with a social media content plan feels intimidating, let us help you! We call ourselves experts for a reason, and we want to see your business become the best it can be.

To learn a little more about the role Instagram plays in your small business, check out our other blog post here where we cover some of the ways you can manipulate Instagram to boost your business. As they say, the more you know!