How to generate your Instagram personas

If you are a business owner, Instagram can be one of your most lucrative channels. There are more than 1 billion Instagram users across the world. 71% of these users are under the age of 35 and they spend at least 53 minutes on average per day. These are fascinating numbers for any business. If you sell a B2B or a B2C service, you can certainly find your clients here. You wouldn’t be disappointed at all for choosing Instagram, unless your target market is senior citizens only.

What is an Instagram persona?

For a brand, their Instagram persona is how they behave on the platform and the kind of perception that their followers and the general public have about them.

Instagram buyer persona is a fictional representation of your target customer based on data from Instagram. You can have anywhere from 3 to 7 different personas based on the type of audience that you are targeting.

In this article, we are going to look at how you can build Instagram user personas as well as a brand persona. Each of these have their own uses, and can help you get great returns from Instagram if you arrive at them by using the right methods. When you find your personas, you will be able to draft the right content which will make them buy products from you, all of this with relative ease.

Why should you create Instagram personas?

Every business which deals with a variety of customers knows that not everyone is the same. All of them have unique needs, habits, characteristics, and whatnot. With Instagram personas, you will be able to reflect everything that you need to know about your Instagram users.

#1 Personalized content improves engagement:

When you create content that is personalized to the expectations of your audience, they will be interested to engage with you. Without creating remarkable content, it is almost impossible to attract a flurry of incoming leads. With personas, you will know which content to create.

#2 It will help you stand out from your competition:

When you research and build personas, you will be better poised to create content that hits the right spot. You should focus on your customers, their needs and requirements. By creating personas, you are doing exactly that. If it is something that your competition doesn’t do, the difference in the kind of content you create and your general approach will be starkly different.

#3 Helps you prioritize your leads:

When someone reaches out to your Instagram page, you will know the kind of priority you should assign to this person based on the Instagram customer personas you have developed. The insights from personas will help you target better, not to mention that it helps refine your ad targeting.

How to generate Instagram user personas

Let’s start with some ways to define your Instagram audience.

#1 Use larger personas:

If you already use buyer personas from other platforms, you can start by reusing the same to define your Instagram audience. Who is your typical customer? Why do they buy your products? What are the pain points that it solves for them? Who do you have in mind when you design your product? What is your audience looking for when they search for your product or one that is similar to yours?

#2 Competitor insights:

One of the easiest ways to learn more about your audience is to study your competitor’s Instagram audience. Apart from getting to know your audience, you will also be able to learn about how to create your brand persona. Based on the type of posts they publish and the kind of audience they have, you can see for yourself if there are changes that you need to make.

#3 Use a social listening tool:

Social listening is exactly what it sounds like, you will be able to find out what your audience on Instagram is saying. By using social listening tools like Brand24, Talkwalker, Konnect Insights, etc., you will be able to track, analyze and respond to conversations that revolve around your brand or industry.

When you are in the know about discussions pertaining to your brand, you will access unfiltered conversations that are made on social media, in this case, Instagram. Based on the insights gathered from a social listening tool, you will be able to understand their needs, wants and pet peeves- all of which will help you come up with personas.

#4 Combine already available info with social data:

If you already have a significant amount of information about your customers, then you can add social data that you have gathered on top of this- it will be more refined. By doing this, you will be able to box the different types of participants into every persona type that are relevant to Instagram. Do not go for topics that are just related to your brand alone, but also look for the other things that they are interested in. You need to have a 360-degree understanding of your customer personas.

#5 Use Instagram polls:

You want to know about your audience. Why not ask them directly? There couldn’t be an easier way to get to know them. Thankfully, Instagram has a feature called ‘Polls’ which is incredibly popular amongst its users. You can use them on your Instagram Stories to ask questions which will help you understand them better and improve your targeting better.

#6 Leverage data from your analytics engine:

You need to know the kind of content that inspires your audience to take action. While the above strategies are great to find your Instagram buyer persona, you can use the data from your business itself to see the results. In your analytics engine, you will be able to see which were the posts that had the most traction. You will get an idea about the video that had the most discussions around it. Each of these vital pieces of information will strengthen your marketing strategy.

#7 Check the hashtags they use:

Hashtags on Instagram are a great way of finding personas. All you need to do is simply look at the hashtags that your followers use consistently. See if you can use some of these hashtags for your own posts, assuming they are relevant to your brand. You can also use hashtags to reach out to users who fit your buyer persona and use a particular set of hashtags. Look at hobby or interest hashtags as well, as these will give you a peek into the minds of your audience.

#8 Get to know the customer’s goals:

What does your ideal customer want solved when they buy your product? What motivates your target audience to look for a solution similar to yours? Make sure that these goals are related to the services or products you provide. The goals of your customer personas are important even if they might not be directly relevant to your product. Their goals can even be the basis of your marketing campaign where you connect their goals to your product.

Once you have all the above information, the next step is to create buyer personas. You can create personas for any industry, let’s say persona nutrition Instagram or persona cosmetics Instagram for the nutrition and cosmetics industry respectively. Think of the above steps as an Instagram persona generator.

Gather all your research and look for common characteristics which will be the foundation of your customer personas. Sometimes, not everyone in your customer group will match the characteristics of your persona exactly. They are humans after all.

Your work isn’t over after you create your Instagram personas. It is imperative that you review and update your buyer personas throughout the year. There are a variety of reasons why this becomes a must. Your customers might change, your business might pivot or there could be changing market expectations.

How to build Instagram persona for your brand

Instagram is a goldmine if you use it rightly. Your Instagram brand persona will help you attract the right kind of audience. Here is how you can build your brand persona:

#1 Your brand voice:

Instagram is a platform that has a particularly young crowd when you compare it with the likes of Facebook or Twitter. You need to come out as a fun brand by posting quirky updates about your products, business, and the industry as a whole. Even if you are a serious business, you cannot afford to be that way always. Your brand voice should humanize you and encourage the users to engage with you.

#2 Using the right kind of images:

Instagram is a website that is primarily into photo-sharing. Of late, it has started leaning towards videos, thanks to Instagram Reels, but it relies heavily on pictures. When you post photos on your official account, you need to think about what you post as it will be representative of your brand. The images that you share should give your customers an understanding of what your business does. It should elicit their curiosity and make them want to know more about your brand and what you sell.

#3 Use the right hashtags:

Create a hashtag that is specifically for your brand for your audience to identify with. Other than this, you can also hashtags that are related to your industry. It will not only help you get discovered, but also will help people to understand your brand and learn what you do.

#4 Have a clear brand identity:

With an identity design, you will be able to set the tone for your brand on Instagram. It will help you communicate in such a way that your company’s overall messaging looks consistent for your audience. It shapes your customer’s perception of who you are and creates trust and loyalty for those who do business with you. Ensure that the visual elements such as logo, typography, colors, graphics, etc., are the same across other platforms too, not just on Instagram.

#5 Be a part of relevant conversations:

It pays to be active on social media platforms, including Instagram. If there are relevant discussions, make sure you are there. You can use some of the social listening tools that we mentioned earlier in the article which will help you track some of the relevant conversations. Participate in them by adding your opinions.

Go ahead and start conversations on topics that are based on your business or industry. It will help you understand the sentiments of users and you will be able to gauge what people think about the set of products that are currently available (including yours) or their opinion of the service levels.

#6 Share behind-the-scenes videos:

If you want your target audience to look at you as a brand that values its people, then show them videos of what is happening on the sidelines. What are the pains that you take before the customer gets your product in their hands? The informality of such content brings your audience closer to your brand as it gives them a sense of community and makes them feel special.

When you let your audience see who is working hard behind the scenes and get to know them, it humanizes your brand and encourages them to see you as a bunch of people doing interesting things. It helps you easily connect with your audience, and build a rapport that would not have been possible without sharing such content.

Conclusion

The deeper you understand your customers, the better it is for your overall business efforts. It will make a difference in everything from how you develop your product to the marketing strategies that you use. The social media buyer personas for your business are also going to help you streamline your Instagram efforts. It will help you use the right kind of images, posts, hashtags, and more. Be aware of what your customers are going through, the kind of solution that they require and come up with a solution that will help them immensely.

With your Instagram personas, you can get in front of the right audience to improve your conversions and provide the right set of solutions for your customers. By putting a face to your customers, you will be able to write in a tone that they will be able to relate to.