This is why 90% of Instagram strategies don’t work

There is a reason behind the success of a lot of those huge Instagram accounts and influencers, you know - the ones we look up to and aspire to be someday. There is something there doing that is being unintentionally ignored by a lot of new creators - and that is focusing too much on an Instagram Strategy and not on your overarching brand strategy - both are incredibly important, but you can’t have a well-oiled Instagram strategy without first developing a strong brand strategy, which is what I want to walk you through today!

There are so many creators out there and probably quite a few in the main niche you have chosen, but if you take your time to build a brand strategy, it will set you apart from your competitors. If you don’t do this, you will struggle with keeping consistent and making big-impact decisions down the road.

Choosing your brand type

One of the first things you have to decide when creating your brand strategy is your brand type. There are two major brand types to choose from, a Personal Brand and a Business Brand. These are probably pretty self-explanatory, but just in case - here is a little explanation of the two options.

A personal brand is built around you personally and so, your name and your business name will usually be the same.

A business brand is built around an identity you create for your business and is independent of your personal name.

Developing a brand identity

Speaking of “identity” another way to sculpt your brand strategy is by developing your brand identity. This isn’t your brand colors, logo, fonts, etc. Instead, I am talking about your purpose, vision, mission, and values. The true core of who you are as a brand. There are three major questions you need to ask yourself.

What do you stand for?

One of the easiest ways to stop feeling lost in the noise on Instagram is by taking a stance on what’s most important to you. What feelings do you want to inspire? What do you want to be known for?

Who is your competition?

This isn’t about being a copycat and trying to mimic what someone else is already doing - this is meant for researching their core values and mission.

What is your voice?

How you choose to speak to your audience can make or break your connection with them. It's important to establish what you want that connection to feel like, and then determine what language you'll use to make that connection happen.

Brainstorming these questions now will help you so much down the road when developing your content - as you will already have the core strategy built and ready to be used.

Developing your ideal audience

Now that you have decided on your business type and identity, now you have to decide who that business is for - I am sure by this point you have some sort of audience or customer in mind, but now it’s time to truly decide who your ideal audience is. Have you ever heard someone say that you need to develop your business avatar? That is exactly what you need to do now. You will create 3 to 4 different types of people who might be interested in your brand, and therefore - your content, products, and services. The more you find out about these people, the more information you have to create the content and offers that will excite them the most. The goal of all this research and planning is to make your viewers feel like you are speaking to them directly.

Decide on your pillars and niche

Finally, it’s about time to develop your niche and pillars and YES, there is a reason I saved this one for last and a reason I said “Pillars” before “Niche” - and that is because before you come up with your Niche, you need to first develop your ideal audience and with that information, you will come up with Pillars, finally - these pillars will lead you to your overarching niche. This is backward compared to what a lot of others are teaching online, but I honestly believe this is the most powerful way to develop your niche. I talked about this in-depth in a recent YouTube video called “watch THIS before starting a YouTube channel” - so make sure to check it out!

Taking these steps to develop a well-rounded brand strategy will set you up to create a strategy specifically for Instagram or any other social media platform you decide to launch in the future.

and if you are struggling to build a content creation system - then make sure to tune back in for our next episode all about creating these systems!