Hey Ladies, welcome back. How many of you are struggling with growing your business and brand on Instagram? Are you struggling with figuring out what to post? Is your Instagram feed simply a hot mess? Are you posting random pictures with no captions? Is your engagement dead in the water. If you’re ready to transform your account and get better results on Instagram, then keep listening. This is Episode 8; The Ultimate Instagram makeover.
Before I can dive in and share with you how to really make over your Instagram account, you really need to understand personal branding. So what is a personal brand? Now a lot of people may think a brand is a logo or the colors or simply just your Web site. But let me tell you ladies, a personal brand is you and what you stand for. It’s the experience you give your followers. Your brand is basically your overall reputation. Now if you need to really understand personal branding, please pause the show and go back and listen to episode two, because that’s where I really dive deep into personal branding. But if you’re ready to dive into the ultimate Instagram makeover, then let’s begin.
Today I’m going to share five strategies to an Instagram makeover so you can start representing your personal brand.
- You must have a professional head shot. I’m sorry mamas, but the selfie in the bathroom or the picture of you in the car is just not going to cut it. If you want to be known as an expert or an authority in your niche, a professional head shot is an absolute. Now here is a tip, if you can’t afford a professional photographer, I would post on Facebook that you’re looking for a local photographer willing to exchange services and testimonials for a quick half hour branding session. Find a photographer that’s just starting out and I can bet that they are willing to trade services in exchange for that head shot.
- You need to have a killer biography. When someone clicks on your account on Instagram, your picture and your bio is going to be the first thing they see. Your bio needs to be direct and to the point. You want to state exactly what you do for your ideal customer. What’s in it for them? Stick to your niche and don’t confuse your audience. They will flee if they don’t know specifically how you can help them. I bet a lot of moms have multiple streams of income and feel that it’s necessary in your bio to list everything you do or to list everything that you offer. If you do this, you will actually confuse your audience. They’re not going to know specifically what you do. They’re just going to move on to the next person. You really need to sit down, and you really need to think what is the number one thing that you offer your ideal customer or how you stand out from the crowd. You need to get crystal clear on what you offer your target audience. So for example I am a brand strategist and a lifestyle stock photographer. I obviously offer photos and branding help. A lot of you may not know that I have an MLM side hustle, but I don’t put that in my biography, because I don’t want to confuse my target audience on what I offer. I stick to my niche. It’s okay to have an umbrella brand and multiple streams of income, but don’t confuse your target audience. Make sure that your biography is direct and to the point. Stick to your niche and state exactly what you do for your ideal customer and always in that biography include your call to action and offer a link.
- You want to set the mood or tone for your Instagram grid. Basically you want your personality to shine through your account. To do this come up with three personality traits that describe you and ask a few other people that are really close to you to come up with three traits as well. For me, I try to set the mood or tone for creativity, inspiration and a little bit of sassy fun.
- Set the color palette for your Instagram grid. You want your Instagram grid to flow and have a specific look. Your IG grid should reflect your website if you have one. It should have the same colors and the same feel. If your website has a lot of white and is very fresh airy feeling, your Instagram grid should be very similar. Now if you go to my grid, you’ll see blush pinks with some Indigo mixed in along with my photos that matches my Web site and my brand color. You want the look and feel of your Instagram grid to be the same as your Web site or the same feel as your Facebook group/Pinterest page. If you’re feeling stuck, create a vision board on Pinterest and pin photos and color palettes that vibe with you and bring out your personality traits. You can also visit http://www.coolors.co. This Web site is really cool. It will create a color palette. It’s basically a free color palette generator and you can set up to five brand colors for yourself within this website. It’s super cool, I recommend that you check it out if you don’t already have your brand colors set.
- Instagram categories. How many listeners feel stuck when it comes to posting consistently on Instagram? I know there’s a lot of you out there that honestly just get stuck on what to post. You already have your head shot. You already have a killer bio; you have your mood, or your tone set for your Instagram account and you’re ready to rock your color palette. But now you’re stuck at what to post. I want you to create categories and what I mean by categories, these are the post types that you’re going to be posting on Instagram. These categories keep you consistent and relevant. Here’s some examples on categories. And these are examples that I do or that I use. I recommend that you sit down and think about your everyday life and think about your business and come up with categories or post types that you can talk about on Instagram. For example you can have a category on a new blog post, mom life, inspiration, behind the scenes, promotions or freebies, gratitude, a vulnerable post, coffee or food, tutorial post or even a personal insight type post. Now I recommend that you do a minimum of six categories up to 12 and these categories should be a mix of your personal life and your business. Remember, Instagram is all about making connections, building relationships and building that community on Instagram. Your Instagram grid and your account needs to be a mix of your business and your personal life. These categories are going to help you. Come up with your categories and what I recommend that you do is every month, fill up your calendar with these categories. What I do is I have a printed sheet of let’s say the September calendar. What I’m going to do is I’m going to look at the categories that I have for the month and I’m going to fill in each day with a category. So on Monday, I may talk about coffee. On Tuesday it may be a post related to mom life. Wednesday might be an inspirational post or a quot. Thursday may be behind the scenes. Friday may be the tip of the day. Do you see where I’m going with this. It’s very easy to fill up your calendar with these categories. It’s going to help you stay consistent. It’s going to help you stay relevant.
There are the five strategies to your ultimate Instagram makeover. Now if you’re still stuck and you need more, then ladies you definitely need to snag my e-book, Build a Superior Instagram Brand. It basically goes into details about everything I talked about today. And here’s the bonus, my e-book has 30 days’ worth of photos and quote graphics with captions. That’s 30 captions; that’s an entire month of content all for just $9. As always Stay on Brand and I’ll see you next time.
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