Is Concepting The Key To Instagram Success?
There are a million ways to get your Instagram account noticed. Use hashtags, follow lots of people, comment on lots of pictures. But what if it’s more basic than that? Looking at “viral” Instagram accounts, and those that take advantage of the platform for what it is — a purely visual representation of your brand—it brought me to a new (well, new for me) idea. Branded visual stories through repetition. Concepts.
A great way to approach creating a new Instagram account (or auditing your existing one) is to have it branded without all the branding. If someone goes to your profile and doesn’t look at the username, can they tell it’s you? Do all of your photos follow a consistent format?
Users I love have more than great quality photos, which is obviously an advantage for users. They have that identifyable factor. They have that memorable aspect to their account that makes people tell their friends “you have to check out this account I love.”
So how do you create that? We can’t all just be the next Rich Kids of Instagram or Humans of New York, and we can’t copy them either. I think, it comes back to brand voice. Think of Instagram as your visual brand voice. This platform needs to tell your story, through photos. Each photo should be thought out, and presented to reflect your brand so that when nameless, your audience still knows it’s you.
Here are a few easy questions to answer, to find out how to represent your brand via your Instagram account.
- What do I want my brand to say? (start your story with words, then think how visuals can represent that)
- What visual aspects identify my brand? (logos, staff members, office space, colors)
- Are there opportunities for others to tell my brand’s story through photos? (User generated content is FREE and the way of the FUTURE!)
- Is there a theme I want to, or could, follow to make managing my account easier, and more visually appealing at the same time?
While many brands achieve Insta-fame just by being themselves, for the rest of us, it’s about creating that visual connection with our followers, and creating a brand persona, an image that tells our story.
Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution. — Ansel Adams
