How to brand your Instagram page | How to create a brand for Instagram & GROW 📈

we all know that instagram is an incredibly visually based platform which is why having a good brand is so important if you want to see growth but a brand is so much more than just a pretty grid it's about your voice your message your mission and the audience that you're speaking to you can post all of the beautifully designed graphics in the world but if you don't have a true brand backing it up meaning the way you connect with your audience the personality behind your brand you're not going to see growth and on the flip side of things if you have a really strong brand and a great voice but you aren't representing it well in your visuals you're also going to have challenges in this video i'm going to walk you through exactly how to develop that brand that voice the message the way you connect with your audience as well as the visual side of things and if you're thinking that design just really isn't your thing even better because i'm very excited to introduce you to the sponsor of today's video 99 designs i'll be talking more about them later so stay tuned hello hello hello and welcome back to the channel everyone this week we are talking about branding your instagram and i'm very excited to talk about this because lately we've been covering a lot of topics around engagement and growth strategies but the important foundation to all of those different pieces really is having a strong brand also today your girl is sipping on some iced coffee even though it's the middle of the winter but you know that's how we do it i feel like the word brand has become almost a cliche at this point like it's such a buzzword in the online community i mean there are just i feel like millions of white girls out here talking about building their brand and yes that is me i am white girls but despite how much of a buzzword it has become it really is essential to the growth of your business on instagram and like i said before a good brand is so much more than a pretty logo or cohesive grid on instagram it's the personality it's the beating heart behind your business so today i wanted to walk you through five steps or five questions that you need to ask yourself when you are developing your brand and this can be applicable whether you're just getting started with your business online and you're kind of building this from scratch or if you've already got something out there and you want to refine it and make it even more effective these are the same kinds of questions that i ask my clients when i'm working on building their instagram content strategies if you didn't know i own a small social media content creation agency called katie steckley creative services and me and my team work with influencers and small business owners to develop instagram strategies that are gonna help them meet their goals and so i'm gonna give you a little taste of that today in this video okay so here are the five different questions or things that we're gonna go through when we're building up a strong brand for your instagram presence first audience who do you want to serve second mission or what do you do what do you do for those people third personality who are you as a brand number four your voice how do you communicate and number five your image how do you represent all of that stuff about your brand in a visual way and it's funny because number five is really the thing that most people go to immediately when they think about branding but all of the steps one through four are really the underpinnings of how you're gonna create that number five so let's get into number one which is who is your audience this is the first question for a very important reason and that is because i really want you to start here and spend some time thinking about who are the kinds of people that you want to serve who is your ideal customer ultimately the point of all of this branding the point of all of this content the point of your entire instagram is to connect with your ideal customer or client or follower or whatever and connect with lots of them and grow your audience right that's the whole point of social media marketing we have to figure out who that ideal customer is or all of the other stuff that we do afterwards is gonna lack guidance and direction so get your pen and paper ready because i'm gonna go through a number of questions that you wanna ask yourself in order to create your ideal customer or user persona or whatever you wanna call it this is the sort of character in your mind that is that person that you really want to connect with i personally find this process very fun and imaginative but that's because i wrote fan fiction as a teenager and it's all about creating a character usually a character that you want to be who is dating harry styles but that's not the case here number one how old are they number two where do they live number three what do they do for a living four what are their hobbies five what do they like to watch on netflix who are their favorite musical artists six what other instagram accounts do they follow and seven what kind of images do they share to their story as you can see as we go through these questions we kind of get more and more specific and you can start to see how the answers to these questions are going to lead into the types of content and branding that we create and what would this be without an example i'm going to walk you through a specific example that i was recently building out for a client of mine tool and rugby which is an e-commerce website if you're interested in like aesthetic home goods you should definitely check them out because there's a lot of cool products on there my team and i have been working on developing an instagram strategy for them and so this is the process that i walk through in my mind to figure out what kind of content we're gonna make for their profile so i'm gonna use their brand as an example and this is the ideal customer persona that we developed for their strategy so who are they who is tolan rugby for this example's ideal customer we decided that their ideal customer or follower were millennial women who are probably transitioning away from the student life from being in college or university to now living on their own for the first time and they're making their first space on their own into a home where do they live probably in a big city somewhere but nestled up in a cute and cozy apartment of their own number three what does she do for a living she probably works in a nine-to-five entry-level type position maybe in like media and communications or publishing or some kind of other sort of general corporate type environment she's just getting started in her career but she's really excited and enthusiastic about it and is also pretty into self-development and personal growth number four what are her hobbies this ideal customer likes to wake up early on saturday mornings and go browse at the farmers market at least you know pre-coveted loves to do yoga in her spare time she's the type of person who posts photos on her instagram story on a rainy saturday afternoon with her book open in front of a window seeing a gloomy city skyline in the background she's also a huge fan of watching historical period piece type tv shows on netflix think bridgeton game of thrones outlander if you will and she's sophisticated we're talking red wine black coffee you know carbonated water kind of person like way cooler than me and in terms of musicians do i even have to say or don't we already know based on the description i've already given you we're talking taylor swift especially folklore and evermore let's be real and what are other instagram accounts that they already follow probably lots of book accounts because this girl she's into jane austen okay she's watching the pride and prejudice movie at least on a monthly basis so she's following people like books and quills maybe ariel bessette some other booktuber type people and she also probably follows some of those typical kind of millennial media accounts like refinery29 probably the financial diet what kind of posts or images from other accounts does she reshare to her own instagram story probably aesthetic photos of books and candles maybe of like a cozy bedroom kind of thing plus lots of reshares of feed posts about activism social justice maybe even some poetry quotes here and there and some like inspirational messages okay now we're coming out of the fantasy do you see the picture that i'm painting here i feel like once we go through those questions and we answer them in a really thorough way you can start to see how we get a really really clear picture of exactly who we're talking to and that allows us to create content that is specifically designed to be enjoyed by this person i would recommend once you work through these questions on your own maybe you can start a pinterest board and start collecting images that you feel like remind you of your ideal customer or ideal follower especially if you're starting from scratch on the visual side of your brand this will really help you get a sense of what kind of color palette or mood that you're trying to create with your imagery also i know we got really specific here but you have to know this doesn't mean that every single customer or every single follower is going to be that exact person chances are that exact person doesn't exist because people are complex people contain multitudes you're never going to be able to represent an actual human in a user persona but the point of this is it gives us a sense of the kinds of ways that we can relate to the folks that we think are going to be our audience if you try to create everything for everyone you're gonna end up creating nothing for anybody right so we need to start from a point of thinking about who we're creating content for and that's gonna give us the inspiration and direction that we need which brings us to number two which is your mission what you do and why when you connect your mission to your ideal customer that is how you create your health statement or what you do for people right this is the classic thing that everybody's got in their instagram bio like i help so and so do such and such things so answer the question that sounds really simple it might actually be kind of difficult for you and that is what do you do do you provide services or products maybe you're at the point where all you want to do is provide content if your goal is to be a personal brand influencer then maybe what you're providing is something less tangible like encouragement or motivation that's okay just get clear on exactly what you are providing and then ask yourself why you want to do that like what is your why behind all of that and that's going to give you a little bit more of a clear vision of how to craft your brand messaging maybe you're wise connected to a personal story or experience of yours or maybe it's something else whatever it is just sit back and ask yourself why do i want to provide x to y people for myself as an example i provide services to small business owners and influencers and i like to do that because i have gotten so much joy out of content creation and online community and i want to be able to help other people who have a message that they want to share or a goal that they're pursuing use content creation to build communities online because i know how fulfilling it has been for myself and i want to be able to share that joy with other people that brings us to number three which is your personality who are you as a brand now that we've determined who you're gonna serve and what you're gonna do for them and why now we're gonna talk about something that starts to get a little bit more complex and that is the personality behind your brand there's two main directions that you might be taking at this point in the video either you are a personal brand or you are a brand for a business in which your face is not the brand so for example tool and rugby is the type of business where it's not a personal brand it is a business brand but katie stuckley for example is a personal brand if you are a personal brand coming up with the personality behind your online presence can be a little bit of a difficult one because this is not really about defining your personality it's about defining the personality of the brand and obviously there's going to be overlap there but what you have to know from the beginning and this is something that i think a lot of people who have personal brands struggle with is the fact that your brand's personality is not going to be entirely equivalent to yours and that is because you're never going to be able to represent the full range and complexity and beauty of your own self and your own personality in an instagram profile it's just impossible human beings are far too complex for that and so you kind of have to figure out okay if i'm going to be portrayed in a kind of one-sided way what is that side going to be so figure out what traits of yours are going to be most relatable to that ideal audience that we define in the first step and those traits are going to become your brand personality now on the other hand if you are a business brand so not a personal brand because ultimately these are all businesses but you get what i'm saying i want you to think about this in terms of who would be the sort of best friend character to that main character ideal customer that we came up in the first step okay so we're going back to our fan fiction writing if we're thinking about the main girl who's dating harry styles who's her best friend in the story because that's what your brand is gonna become okay the best friend to the girl dating harry styles really the point of this is just to figure out what kind of personality is your ideal customer gonna vibe with and then how can you develop that in your writing your visuals etc for either of these situations personal brand or not you want to think about what are the kind of extremes what's the spectrum of the different personality traits and which ones do you want to lean towards most do you want to be bold or understated excited and loud or quiet and thoughtful muted and calm or bright and excitable come up with a list of adjectives that you feel like could describe your brand's personality this is especially gonna come in handy when it comes to the design phase which is step number five but this is also gonna come in handy when you sit down to write your captions or write your instagram bio which brings us nicely to step number four which is your voice how are you going to communicate as a brand with your audience figuring out what the voice of a brand is is such a delicate procedure in my experience to give you an example of my own background i did an internship at a fashion magazine when i was 18 i guess turning 19 so after my first year of university and i remember that the first few pieces that i wrote for the website i kept getting the same feedback from the editors like oh you haven't really got the voice like that's not something that we would say like we wouldn't say it that way and i found that so difficult to nail down i was like uh but i'm just writing what needs to be said like how would you say it in a different way and i think that was a really big growing point for me at that time because figuring out the voice of a brand or in that case a publication is so important to making sure that the entire thing feels cohesive and connects with the ideal audience because just like a magazine has an ideal audience or a target demographic your brand is going to as well so figuring out the best way that those people want to be communicated to it can be difficult it can be a bit of a subtle procedure but it's also very very important so that it doesn't come across as like fake or just like not the vibe people are looking for and i mean ultimately this is up to you but i think this is also a good point to think about how you can make sure that the voice of your brand is inclusive that's something that is very important to me and i hope would be important to you and your brand as well so for instance you may have noticed in my videos i don't say hey guys i always say like hello everyone or y'all because i'm trying to be gender neutral in the way that i speak and that's something that you might consider for your brand too however you might not be trying to target the same audience as me and there's nothing wrong with specifically speaking to women if that's who you're trying to speak to for example so you know just try to ask yourself like is the general way that people are talking on instagram right now that you're consuming a lot the same way that you want to speak because a lot of us will naturally imitate the voice that we hear the most and so i think if you're really immersed in a certain kind of niche on instagram you just want to consider like is that the niche that i really want to replicate or do i want to do something different because for me for instance something that i've had to kind of work through and figure out what my own vibe is is like do i want to be the kind of brand that's like hey girl all the time you know that like hey hun like girl boss kind of thing because i see that a lot on instagram and like whatever that makes sense for some people but it's just not the vibe that i really feel like i personally connect with so that's not the vibe that i wanted to portray but it's so easy at the beginning i feel like i used to write like that a lot of my instagram captions because i read a lot of captions from people that kind of talked like that and so i started talking like that so that's just what i want you to think this through it is subtle it is a little bit complex and difficult to work through but really ask yourself how do i want to talk to my audience and am i just kind of writing the way that i read a lot of other people's writing or am i actually speaking like from the heart and in the personality that i've established for my brand once we have conquered the beast that is figuring out your brand voice and becoming consistent with it we have now climbed the mountain and gotten to the point number five your brand image this is everybody's favorite part of the process because we all like to have pretty branding and cute fonts and can i find my coaster and just beautiful visuals it's a priority for everybody so this is going to be fun i'm excited to be partnering with 99 designs for this portion of the video if you're not familiar with them 99designs is an online platform where you can be matched with a designer who can create some beautiful branding for you or really design visuals for any project that you're working on today though we're going to be focusing on developing instagram visuals specifically for a new instagram account that i'm starting up very soon which i'm excited about if you are intimidated by the idea of developing your own branding or designing your own graphics then 99designs is a really great solution for you they're a great resource to find freelance graphic designers online and ensure that you find somebody who can create the perfect design for you so that new instagram that i was talking about i am launching a brand new instagram page for my podcast so it's at creator club podcast some of you are already following me over there i've just been kind of listening in my bio recently because i haven't posted any content there yet because i've been working with designers on 99 designs to develop the graphics that i'm going to be sharing to this profile i headed over to 99designs and i actually launched a design contest on their platform to get submissions from graphic designers from all over the world to see what design was going to suit my brand best on 99 designs you can either choose to work with a specific designer on a custom project or you can launch a design contest and get submissions from several different designers and pick your favorite for my design contest i started by creating a brief giving an explanation of the kind of design that i was looking for then over the following days designers submitted their ideas for my instagram grid and i got to work with them giving them feedback seeing their revisions and figuring out exactly what direction i wanted to go with this content by the end of the contest i had a number of really great submissions to choose from so the design contest just ended and i've awarded my winner which i'm super excited about and i'm actually gonna go ahead and continue working with this designer to create even more designs for my creator club instagram because like i was saying before on 99 designs you can not only set up design contests which is what i did to start but you can also work with freelancers on a one-on-one basis on custom projects you can get your own professional and beautiful designs made by a designer on 99 designs by signing up with the link in my description go ahead and check it out i think that you're gonna find this to be a really exciting opportunity especially if you struggle with doing designs yourself of course if you're up for it you can always try your hand at canva or other similar online design platforms and develop your own branding as well whether you decide to diy it or hire a designer it's so important that you go through steps one through four in this video so that you can make sure that you determine exactly what your brand direction is and who you're trying to reach you're gonna have a much more successful outcome in the end if you do all of that work i can't wait to see the branding that you come up with for your instagram so always always tag me in any posts that you make in your feed or in your stories so i can check out what you're making if you want to learn more about how to grow on instagram around engagement or content strategy definitely check out these videos you're not going to want to miss them as always thank you so much for watching and i will see you in these videos okay bye

Channel: Katie Steckly

Views: 24,000

Keywords: katie steckly, instagram hacks

Id: GFRbfeMg7-M

Length: 20min 19sec (1219 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 05 2021