Imag­ine a casu­al Insta­gram­mer who wants to be thought of as adventurous.

They post pho­tos of them­selves trav­el­ing to exot­ic loca­tions, try­ing for­eign foods, and liv­ing a life that seems extraordinary.

Even if they actu­al­ly spend the major­i­ty of their time at home watch­ing Net­flix, their audi­ence will view them as an adventurer.

Suc­cess­ful busi­ness­es do the same.

They use Insta­gram as an out­let to craft and show the per­son­al­i­ty of their com­pa­ny, also known as their brand identity.

A well-devel­oped brand iden­ti­ty res­onates with your audi­ence, encour­ag­ing them to become cus­tomers. It also push­es one-time cus­tomers to become reg­u­lars, by giv­ing them an emo­tion­al con­nec­tion with your brand.

Build­ing a brand iden­ti­ty on Insta­gram requires con­sis­ten­cy. Fol­low these four steps to ensure your Insta­gram chan­nel is cohe­sive and rep­re­sen­ta­tive of your brand.

Consistent Messaging

All of your Insta­gram con­tent should reaf­firm your brand.

So what do you want to be known for, and what do you want to gain?

If you are cur­rent­ly recruit­ing young tal­ent, you may want poten­tial employ­ees to know that your com­pa­ny is a fun place to work. For con­tent, you’ll want to fea­ture pic­tures of your work­ers doing actu­al­ly inter­est­ing activities.

Hint: sit­ting at their desks with a forced smile does not count.

Consistent Visuals

No mat­ter the image type, your fol­low­ers should be able to look at any of your posts and instant­ly rec­og­nize it as one of yours (with­out even see­ing your logo.)

In oth­er words, your visu­al con­tent should be its own watermark.

When post­ing pho­tos, use the same fil­ter to give them all a sim­i­lar feel.

If you’re cre­at­ing images your­self, make sure the art style is con­sis­tent even when the images are dif­fer­ent. Try to use the same col­or pal­let that is found through­out your brand and across oth­er your mar­ket­ing chan­nels — includ­ing your email marketing.

Consistent fonts

On a visu­al medi­um like Insta­gram, using words in your pic­tures can either make or break you.

It is good prac­tice to rely on one or two main fonts across all chan­nels of your brand.

If your busi­ness doesn’t yet have a set of fonts it uses, try to pick a cou­ple that match­es the tone of your industry.

Consistent timing

You want your audi­ence to look for­ward to your posts. Be predictable.

Even with Instagram’s new algo­rithm, the bulk of expo­sure your posts receive comes short­ly after posting.

By post­ing at con­sis­tent times and days, your fol­low­ers begin to expect and look for­ward to your content.

So what now?

With these tips, you’re ready to craft your brand iden­ti­ty on Instagram.

But don’t stop at just your Insta­gram chan­nel. Look for ways to extend the reach of these brand-boost­ing images by shar­ing the best ones on your oth­er social chan­nels, your web­site, and in your mar­ket­ing emails.

Con­stant Con­tact inte­grates with Insta­gram so you can eas­i­ly upload images from your Insta­gram chan­nel into your email newsletter.

As your audi­ence sees your con­sis­tent brand com­ing through on mul­ti­ple chan­nels, your brand iden­ti­ty will shine through even stronger and you’ll have con­fi­dence in the images you’re sharing.

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