{"id":4126,"date":"2019-03-24T22:40:07","date_gmt":"2019-03-24T12:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/how-to-build-up-your-new-businesses-brand-on-instagram\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T18:44:52","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T08:44:52","slug":"how-to-build-up-your-new-businesses-brand-on-instagram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/how-to-build-up-your-new-businesses-brand-on-instagram\/","title":{"rendered":"How to build up your new businesses\u2019 brand on Instagram"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So you\u2019ve just bought a new business and started the rebranding process \u2013 now what?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How do you brand your new business online and promote it effectively? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Great branding is essential to building up a successful business and there are few platforms more effective than Instagram at showcasing your branding and aesthetic, your brand\u2019s core values and your business, as a whole. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this blog post, discover how to build up your new businesses\u2019 brand on <a href=\"https:\/\/flippa.com\/buy\/social-media\/instagram\">Instagram<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Why Instagram?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Instagram is a highly visual social network \u2013 and that\u2019s a huge bonus from a branding perspective. There is so much potential for being creative, from the images, videos and Stories you post to the colours you use in your content and to how you arrange your Instagram grid.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But, of course, numbers are very important as well; as per <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/business.instagram.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Instagram\u2019s own statistics<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the platform has:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">1 billion+ accounts that are active on a monthly basis<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Out of those, at least half of them (500 million+) are active Every. Single. Day. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just as many people (500 million+) use the Instagram Stories feature every day<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">80% of Instagrammers follow at least one business on the platform<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">200 million Instagrammers visit at last one business profile daily <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A staggering one third of the most viewed Stories on Instagram are from businesses<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">60% of people say that they discover new products on Instagram <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Not only is Instagram an incredibly popular platform \u2013 and still growing in popularity \u2013 but it\u2019s also one of the few platforms where brands and consumers have a very close relationship. People will follow and interact with a food brand that regularly shares delicious-looking recipes. They will engage with clothing brands that showcase cool new outfits. And they will follow their favourite brands to be the one of the first to know about their latest products and releases. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, where do you get started?<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Get yourself an Instagram business account<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Setting up a business account is essential as it will give you a bunch of extra features:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Real-time metrics on your Instagram analytics, such as the performance of your Stories and of your promoted posts, as well as insights into your followers and your engagement <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can add important contact information to your profile: business hours, location and phone number<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To create a business account, you\u2019ll first need to download the Instagram app and create a regular user account; once that\u2019s sorted, you can set up your business account following the instructions <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/business\/profiles\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Put together an Instagram marketing strategy<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before you start posting anything to your Instagram account, you need a strategy. That involves:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Setting up your Instagram marketing objectives<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Performing competitive research <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Establishing your brand\u2019s look and content theme for Instagram and develop your brand guidelines for Instagram <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Establishing your <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lilachbullock.com\/social-media-calendar\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">social media calendar<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Analysing and optimizing your strategy<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>Setting up your Instagram marketing objectives \u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since you\u2019re here reading this article, it\u2019s easy to assume that one of your main goals is to build up your brand and your brand awareness. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That said, there are other business goals you can achieve with Instagram, together with your branding goals; these are:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Drive traffic to your business website, business blog, landing pages and product\/landing pages<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Increase your engagement<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Showcase your team and business, along with your company culture (which also helps with branding your business)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Generate more sales for your new business<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Connect with relevant social influencers on Instagram <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once you\u2019re very clear on what your objectives are, you can finally start putting together your strategy in terms of your approach to reaching those objectives and the content you\u2019re going to post. <\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Perform competitive research<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Understanding who your competitors are and how they\u2019re using Instagram to brand themselves \u2013 and grow their businesses \u2013 is an important part of the process. It can help inform your strategy, particularly because it helps you understand:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What types of content would work best for your Instagram target audience<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What your top performing competitors are doing that gets them results<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Which hashtags you should use <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you already know who some of your competitors are, then start looking up their profiles to understand what their strategy is and how they\u2019re performing. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To find more of your competitors on Instagram, you can also use a tool like <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.combin.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Combin<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">; you can search for content in specific areas, using certain hashtags:<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The tool will then pull any relevant posts from those areas, using the hashtags you specified \u2013 it\u2019s a quick and effective way to find more local competitors for your business.<\/p>\n<p>Next, to analyse their profiles in more detail and understand their insights and analytics, you can use a tool like <a href=\"https:\/\/metricool.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Metricool<\/a>, which allows you to monitor your competitors\u2019 analytics:<\/p>\n<h3>Establishing your brand\u2019s look and content theme for Instagram<\/h3>\n<p>The visual nature of Instagram means that each piece of content you post will showcase your branding and your brand\u2019s personality. Each new image or video you add to your grid is part of a larger story: the story of your brand.<\/p>\n<p>In order to properly brand your business on Instagram, you need to be very clear about your content theme and Instagram posting guidelines:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What is the mood\/vibe that you want your profile to express? For example, if you look at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/califiafarms\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Califia Farm\u2019s<\/a> Instagram profile, you immediately get a certain vibe from all the earthy colours they use in their content:<\/li>\n<li>What types of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lilachbullock.com\/develop-instagram-visual-content-strategy-guide\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">visual content<\/a> will you use? i.e. your products, people, beautiful sceneries and so on. Plus, will you be funny? Cute? Interesting and educational? Inspirational?<\/li>\n<li>What will your Instagram grid layout look like? I.e. what will your profile look like? A great grid layout will not only help with branding, but it will also entice Instagrammers who visit your profile to scroll down and see more.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are so many routes you can take here; for example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Use the same filter throughout all your Instagram content<\/li>\n<li>Use the same colour scheme, like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/canva\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Canva<\/a> does (and changes regularly, so they flow from one colour to another as you scroll down their feed):<\/li>\n<li>White or black boarders, like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/beautifulandyummy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Beautiful &amp; Yummy<\/a>:<\/li>\n<li>The \u201cline down the middle\u201d feed is an easy, yet visually striking option; here\u2019s how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bakemixes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bake Mixes<\/a> does it:<\/li>\n<li>The Puzzle feed: definitely the most difficult one to achieve, but the results can be absolutely stunning. The puzzle feed essentially means that all of the updates in your feed connect with each other and create a much bigger picture (literally); here\u2019s an example from Simply Whyte Design:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Building up your Instagram social media calendar<\/h3>\n<p>Now you know who you want to be on Instagram. What vibe you want to express. What goals you absolutely have to reach. What next?<\/p>\n<p>Putting together your social media calendar, of course. Because the only way to achieve your goals \u2013 and create quality content consistently \u2013 is to be very clear about what your approach is and what content you\u2019re going to create and post in the future.<\/p>\n<p>When you put together your calendar ahead of time, you have the possibility to ask yourself one important question (and answer it):<\/p>\n<p><em>Will this post help me reach my objective?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>And if the answer is NO, you\u2019ll then have enough time to come up with alternative ideas. Plus, this gives you enough time to create your content in advance and ensure it\u2019s not only the right approach but also that it looks great.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not to say you can\u2019t occasionally post something that wasn\u2019t necessarily in your schedule \u2013 or constantly revise your calendar as you go along \u2013 but that, generally, it\u2019s best to be prepared ahead of time, for the reasons I listed just before.<\/p>\n<p>At this stage, you\u2019ll need to decide:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How often you\u2019re going to post new content on Instagram; ideally, you should post new content daily, but it\u2019s up to you to decide how much more frequently than that. As you\u2019ll start gaining metrics and insights from the content you post, you\u2019ll be able to optimize your posting schedule for better reach (i.e. posting at the times when your audience is most active)<\/li>\n<li>What your content mix will be like; ideally, post a number of different types of updates, not just in terms of content formats (images, short and long-form videos, Stories) but also in terms of the actual content of your updates (check out content ideas just below)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You should leverage all of these different types of content formats, not just images, as at least half of Instagrammers use Stories every day and video consumption is growing at a very fast rate, which is likely one of the main reasons why Instagram introduced <a href=\"https:\/\/business.instagram.com\/a\/igtv\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">IGTV<\/a>, their own platform for long-form video content \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/video-marketing-is-the-new-trend-in-business\/\">video marketing<\/a> is certainly booming right now.<\/p>\n<p>To put together your social media calendar, you can use a tool like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.agorapulse.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Agorapulse<\/a> to fully manage your account, as well as schedule your updates directly (not just by sending notifications so you can post manually from your phone!).<\/p>\n<p>You can use their social media calendar as a team to add your content ideas, as well as directly post and schedule your updates:<\/p>\n<p>This is essential if you\u2019re going to use Instagram consistently, as otherwise it would simply take up too much of your time. It\u2019s not just about the ability to schedule content (which is certainly a great bonus) but also all the other extra features, such as geotagging for your posts, the ability to save groups of hashtags to use in your updates and the ability to monitor hashtags and keywords for more content ideas (and for discovering great user generated content, for that matter).<\/p>\n<p>Back to Instagram content, here are the different types of content that you can create for your profile that will help you achieve the results you want:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Behind the scenes: showcase your brand, your team and your company culture by sharing photos, videos and Stories of your business and team (anything from \u201ca day at the office\u201d to behind-the-scenes at industry or company events)<\/li>\n<li>Brand photos, videos and Stories: highlight your brand and branding in different types of content to showcase your business, what type of business it is and what you can do for your customers<\/li>\n<li>Your product: showcase your products and their uses in images, videos and Stories<\/li>\n<li>User generated content: leverage content created by other Instagrammers, especially using your products or interacting with your brand in any way<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These types of updates are great for branding your business on Instagram; some other types of content that you can create are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Educational\/how-to content, to help provide value to your audience and keep them coming back for more<\/li>\n<li>Quotes: just add text overlay over beautiful visual content to help engage your audience<\/li>\n<li>Useful tips: as with educational content, this type of content provides a lot of value to your target audience<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Conclusion: analyse and optimize your Instagram strategy<\/h3>\n<p>A great social media strategy \u2013 as this is true of all social networks, not just Instagram \u2013 requires constant monitoring, analysis and optimization.<\/p>\n<p>As you leverage Instagram to grow and brand your new business, make sure to keep a close eye on your insights to understand how you\u2019re performing \u2013 and why. This isn\u2019t so you can pride yourself in how many likes an image received or how many views a Story had; rather, it\u2019s about understanding what works and what doesn\u2019t so that you can improve your Instagram strategy, time and time again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So you\u2019ve just bought a new business and started the rebranding process \u2013 now what? How do you brand your new business online and promote it effectively? Great branding is essential to building up a successful business and there are few platforms more effective than Instagram at showcasing your branding and aesthetic, your brand\u2019s core values and your business, as a whole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":1482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,290],"tags":[],"dipi_cpt_category":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4126"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4126"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42279,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4126\/revisions\/42279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4126"},{"taxonomy":"dipi_cpt_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dipi_cpt_category?post=4126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}