How to Level Up Your Visual Branding on Instagram

Many small brands find it hard to develop their visual brand identity on Instagram. This can greatly affect their business; a strong visual brand identity is very crucial in giving an instant impression of a brand’s personality as well as values without having to word anything. You can effectively use your brand identity to communicate different thoughts and ideas that you may not say otherwise.

The colors that you use and the images that you add can reveal a lot about you and same is the true for your brand. Good visual branding can often be the decisive factor in how your brand stands out against the competitors in the market. In this article, we will share some steps that you can use to create and boost your visual brand identity on Instagram.

Define Your Brand Values

Values are not exclusive to humans. The very first step in creating your brand identity is to decide what you want your brand to stand for, who are the people you want to approach (target audience) and what message do you wish to deliver.  Once you have defined your brand values, it becomes easy for you to build a strong visual identity based on your brand’s mission.

It is not so difficult to decide this. All you have to do is to come up with some good adjectives that may help define your brand and what it stands for. These adjectives are what you need to deliver, regardless of what your message is for the audience.

An easy way to come up with good words is to think along the lines such as if your brand were to be a city or a car, which one would it be. This is an easy way of visualizing the identity of your brand and this may often reflect your own personality and choices. If it sounds strange, then you may look up all the research that the psychologists are doing on colors and the role they play in your beliefs and values. In a similar manner, the color scheme and images that you use for your brand will reflect your brand’s values as well.

While there are certain things associated with certain colors, it is often in your hands how you use a color and the message you deliver using it. To take things one step ahead of others, you may consider making a brand mood board. This will help you determine the colors, images as well as textures and patterns that you may use to communicate your brand’s mission.

You may also consider taking help of different online apps that help create mood boards instantly. Some apps also allow you to find suitable brand images without any cost. These small tips can play a crucial part in creating a dynamic mood board that will later help in creating your brand’s identity.

The next step is for you to decide and draw a kind of map to explain how everything will be incorporated in building your identity for the Instagram. You may find some online planning and publishing tools as well that might benefit you.

Attract Your Target Audience

This takes you to the next step of your visual branding. If you do not already have a target audience defined, then this is the stage where you must get a clear picture of your audience. You should understand what the people want to hear from you and what will help you build your brand image.

In order to effectively market your product, you must narrow down your audience in terms of gender, age and other factors. For instance, if you are marketing a beauty product, then instead of just defining your audience as women, you may instead define it as young, millennial females. Or if you are selling a particular kind of clothes, then you must understand who the people are who might want to buy your clothes.

The best marketing strategy is always well researched and based on a good understanding of the audience’s preferences. Things such as the movies they like, the music they listen to, and sometimes even their values and beliefs they have, play a vital role in their consumer choices. In some cases, you may want to align your brand values to the values of your target audience for better results.

All these things fall under the idea of persona building, which helps your brand speak to your audience at a more personal level. Doing so, you can appeal to them as something more than just a brand or a product. After having your values and target audience defined and understanding your audience’s expectations, you may move to the designing part. Throughout the process, you must keep asking yourself if what you are doing is in agreement with your brand values and relevant to what your target audience want.

Choosing the Right Colors

This is the most fun yet the most crucial part. There are so many colors to choose from and hundreds of combinations that you can use to represent your brand. Every color and the combination that you use has consequences so it is imperative that you make the right choice. All colors have certain stigmas and connotations attached, but if you are a creative person, then you can always challenge the established beliefs and redefine what a color may represent.

Within each color, there are different shades, and each shade has a different influence on the audience. For instance, a soft pastel blue is considered to represent youthfulness while navy blue is believed to be representing authority.

Do not worry if you feel confused and find it hard to make a choice. Even those with expertise in designing and digital marketing often spend days and nights before choosing a color combination to come up with unique style. If you really think you are too bad at it, you may seek online help as well. There are websites and some Instagram pages that may help at this stage and assist you in coming up with the best possible combinations.

Choosing the Ideal Font

While this might be surprising for many people, but not all fonts are equally good. Choosing the right kind of font is also an art that can affect your marketing to a great extent. While there are so many options to choose from, most fonts can be categorized into four types – Serif, Sans serif, Modern and Display.

It is believed that Serif fonts are a symbol of tradition and respect, while Modern fonts are used to represent innovation. It should be understood that often these things are subjective and depend on how you use the text. Fonts are complex and it is better to either seek expert help. Alternatively, you can also learn from different websites and apps that provide access to a wide collection of templates that you can choose from with already incorporated font pairings.

One thing that you should keep in mind while using delicate styles is the readability. Before finalizing the post, make sure that the text is readable and easy to decipher on the smallest devices as well.

Another important thing when using text for visual branding is to make sure not to go overboard. Make sure you keep it concise, articulate and relevant to your images. Remember, you are doing visual branding and images are what the audience is looking for.

Organizing the Instagram Profile Aesthetic

With everything else ready, you may proceed to focus on your Instagram aesthetic to further enhance your visual branding strategy. You must have heard of the old phrase that your first impression is the last impression. Hence, make sure that the first posts on your page are the best ones and they truly represent what your brand is all about.

Make sure everything is perfect because every single thing matters. Even the slightest issue in a font or color can prove to be very costly. Other than your first few posts, your profile picture and highlights are also important and have a great impact on the audience.

 

Build Your Standard Style

Once you have chosen the fonts and colors to represent your brand, make sure to create some rules and standardized ways of using them. You should have a clear idea of how they should always be paired together, and which fonts and colors to use together or not. A comprehensive style guide defines everything ranging from color palette and fonts to the kind of images and texts to use. Keep updating your style guide and also try to make a note of how people are responding to different combinations.

Conclusion

In this article, we have identified some of the ways in which you can level up your visual branding on Instagram. We have shared different steps and highlighted things that you may need to focus on. A good visual branding strategy will incorporate all these things and keep a note of how the audience responds to make changes accordingly. With time and consistent effort, you will see your brand reach millions of people every day.