Insights with Ridhi at @SocialHighTea.
Instagram is one of the fastest growing social media platforms and it’s no wonder. With over 1 billion users, it has become a powerful platform for businesses to market. A lot of businesses are looking to work with Instagram strategists because they want to take advantage of this opportunity. Ridhi is an incredible instagram strategist and visual brand identity professional. She was gracious enough to answer some questions below to help us newbies out!
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PRODUCT OFFERING, AND WHY IS IT YOUR FAVORITE?
Although I offer Instagram Management & Consultation and Brand Designing; my favorite offering would be Consultation – since it allows me to help others learn whatever I’ve learnt on my journey to make Instagram easier to use for their business!
How do you keep your instagram full of fresh content AND work?!
Being an Instagram Strategist, this is something that comes natural to me since I’ve been working in this niche for quite a long time. I pretty much understand the type of solutions my audience is looking for. When I work for my clients, I understand their goals and audience base, which helps ease the process of creating content based on that information.
What do you think is important to do to stay relevant on instagram?
There are many things that are important to stay relevant on Instagram, but the most important thing to stay relevant is ‘UNDERSTANDING YOUR AUDIENCE’. Because the main purpose of your business on Instagram is to grow your audience base and then convert those people into your clientele.
You helped identify my brand identity and it was a really fun experience, and I’ve definitely leveraged it. What would you say to someone that doesn’t know what it is – and how it can add value to their business?
Haha I absolutely enjoyed curating a Brand Identity for Envision Web Designers and I love the fact that you’re leveraging it. So, for anyone who isn’t aware of Branding as a whole – On the outside, Branding may seem like it consists only of elements such as logos and colors. But your Branding is actually the entire personality of your Business. It is basically the foundational step of creating a positive perception of your Business in the customer’s mind.
Brand Identity on the other hand, is a visual representation inclusive of logo suite, brand typography, brand colors, packaging, social media designs, website designs, etc. Having a Brand Identity might not seem as important in your Business. But having a cohesive and consistent Brand Identity helps you stand apart from your competitors, become memorable & recognisable, build & create a long lasting trust with your audience and so much more. All this adds to the Brand experience and hence motivates more people to get associated with your Brand!
Instagram can feel intimidating for new solo business startups. They tell me they want to be on social but don’t know where to start or what to talk about. Do you have advice on how to not feel overwhelmed at first?
Instagram can definitely feel intimidating but all you need to do is stick to our Objectives (why do we need to be on the platform). All you gotta do is – CREATE ‘QUALITY CONTENT’ TARGETED TO YOUR ‘AUDIENCE’ WITH YOUR ‘GOALS’ IN MIND! This doesn’t mean you should just be directly selling your product/service. Instead focus on creating content that will help you connect with your audience, which can be via being authoritative, relatable, personal.
When you are starting out, have this thought very clear in your head – YOU ARE A BUSINESS OWNER & NOT A SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER. What I mean by this is there’s absolutely no need to stay on Instagram the entire day looking for trends or finding leads. I always talk of having a process in place which will allow you to save time and energy, so that you focus more on what you’re best at!
HOW DID YOU KNOW IT WAS THE RIGHT TIME FOR YOU TO START YOUR OWN BUSINESS?
I always had a mindset to run a business but I hadn’t really planned on starting a business being an Instagram Strategist and a Brand Designer. But circumstances made me choose this path & I’m grateful to the Universe for bringing this to me.
I was working with an agency full-time as a Digital Marketer, which kind of included so many other miscellaneous tasks as it was a start-up. It was a great learning curve but after sometime I realised it wasn’t meant for me because of so many other reasons. So I resigned and took this leap of faith to run my own business, and fast forward to almost a year, here we are!
Ridhi created all my logo designs including animated, documented my Brand Strategy as well as my Brand Guidelines. All these items reinforce my visual and personality compass. If you’re looking to learn more about instagram strategy or need any branding expertise I strongly recommend you follow or reach out to Ridhi on Instagram at @SocialHighTea.
And if you are looking to send your audience to an optimized website – contact me today to learn more!
