Most businesses now use major social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter as a means to connect to their target audience and as a serious channel to truly establish their brand. This poses a new challenge for businesses in their digital marketing strategy—each social media platform produces different results.

Several others have invested in looking for qualified individuals to balance everything out for them and often trust social media management services in the Philippines to ensure that no platform would be neglected.

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But, if there’s one platform among all the major ones that is every inch the embodiment of influencing and branding, it’s Instagram. If the number of ‘influencers’ sprouting left and right in the platform aren’t enough indication, a survey revealed that 83% of its users have admitted to discover new products or brands through Instagram story ads. It’s also relatively easier to catch a user’s attention on Instagram, thanks to captivating visuals and images.

So, how would a business take advantage of Instagram’s visual content and use it to build an appealing brand? Social media management experts share their tips:

Make Links to Your Website Accessible

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Instagram allows just a single opportunity for businesses to include links directly to their website. Links are not clickable on captions, and mobile users can’t copy and paste it. The most apparent option is to include the link on your bio.

Find creative ways to insert the links in your business’ Instagram bio so users will be enticed to click them once they chance upon your profile.

Create and Post ‘Beautiful’ Pictures That Appeal to Instagram Users

Did you know the brain automatically retains 90% of visual images? With images, you can use this to elevate your brand on Instagram. It also becomes a ‘must’ to have your content stand out with nearly 95 million posts daily as your tight competition. This includes incorporating colors that are consistent with your brand and sizing the pictures correctly to retain quality.

Learn the proper way of cropping photos according to Instagram’s square frame template – meaning posting vertical pictures that should not exceed the aspect ratio of 4:5. This risks the quality of the photo and prevents the photo from appearing awkwardly cropped.

Instagram Values More than Just the Face (Make Use of its Other Tools!)

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Photos might be Instagram’s main asset, but throughout the years it has made significant changes and updates to fully commit to its ‘social networking site’ status.

Instagram’s video feature now goes longer than its initial 15 seconds to a minute long. Even better, it now has a feature called IGTV where the videos could reach up to 10 minutes or an hour long for bigger accounts.

The key is to make sure these videos are cut mid-way or make them eye-catching to entice your audience to click on the video. You can also use Instagram’s more prominent features such as Instagram Stories – a great space where you can create content to tease your viewers. It’s during that brief seconds where you can introduce your brand to users and leave a lasting impression.

Incorporate Hashtags Strategically

Seeing a random video or picture on Instagram with an awful lot of hashtags and taking up all the space in the caption is unsurprisingly not accidental. However, this doesn’t mean that businesses should start incorporating hashtags relating to ‘cute dogs’ or KPOP idols under every post.

While it does bump up interaction and reach a variety of audience, study revealed that hashtags aren’t prioritized randomly in feeds, but needs to be strategically placed. Hashtags must be STRICT – Specific, Targeted, Relevant, Concise, and Thoughtful. This ensures your post appears to the right audience.

Define Your Brand’s Personality and Be Consistent

Instagram offers an opportunity to be more expressive and creative. It also allows everyone the freedom to experiment on their feed. This experimentation allows you to explore and produce content given by the platform, and even beyond its frames.

However, there are millions of users and accounts that are posting and appearing randomly on people’s feeds. It’s important to have a definitive theme that allows enough creative freedom in individual content yet are also formatted in a way that makes it easier for users to distinguish which brand it belongs to.

A definitive theme does not mean repetitive content. Rather, it’s incorporating different details about your brand and occasionally switching things up to keep it interesting. This births consistency, and it’s one of the key factors in attracting people towards your brand and harboring their loyalty.

Make sure your name in Instagram is directly related to your business and be consistent with it across all social channels to make it easier for people to remember.

The methods may be simple: be consistent, be creative, be tactical, and observe community guidelines. However, it’s truly the content that most people are after. While a beautiful picture may capture a viewers’ attention at first glance, an informative and quality content is what keeps them interested.