Instagram: Growing Your Christian Personal Brand
Updated: Jan 27, 2022
Are you trying to figure out what strategy to use on Instagram to establish your Christian personal brand? Do you show your face, or not? Do you post multiple times a day or once every few days? How do you grow an authentic following?
Instagram is how @DailyGodprenuer was able to grow to be the #1 Christian business blog in the world. Growing to over 60,000 followers, its been an incredibly effective way to grow my brand, increase traffic, and boost my membership.
How did I do it?
I gave people access to my personal walk with God as it related to my entrepreneurial journey and business growth.
When I first started @DailyGodpreneur, it was called "Daily Godpreneur with Alex Miranda." I would share everything I was finding in the Bible related to business. It gave people a chance to meet the “real” me. God was giving me all these little golden nuggets that I just couldn't keep to myself, so Instagram was the best and easiest way to accomplish this.
The best way to build our Christian personal brands is to give people a look into our business life through our spiritual walk. Nearly 25% of the population of the whole planet is on Social media; that's 2 billion users worldwide. And since God made us to respond well to visuals and videos, Instagram is a platform that we cannot overlook for being His light in the marketplace.
So how exactly do we build a successful Instagram account as a Christian business thought leader? What is the formula for success?
The Bible says
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15 ESV)
God simply wants you to be unashamed about sharing the Word of God as you work.
There's a whole lot of space to work within that parameter. Sit back, pull out a pen and piece of paper, and I will show you how I built @DailyGodpreneur to over 60,000 followers.
1. Authentically Put God First
Instagram is about unashamedly being the Kingdom-minded, purpose-focused entrepreneur God created you to be. There's a message He put in your heart, and you can't help but share it.
If you really want to succeed at growing your Christian business personal brand, then you need to learn how to use Instagram to authentically share what God has put on your heart.
God made sure that being authentic be a real and important thing in marketing. It has to be this way if we're going to point more of the business world to Christ! Thankfully, Instagram allows us to be a good testimony of our authentic faith.
There is no such thing as a ‘wrong’ post for your God-first personal brand, as long as it is authentic.
Remember, the goal here is to let people into your life (as much or little as you want) and to give your target audience a peek behind the curtains of your business life.
Just authentically share what God has called you to do in your Instagram posts and you will attract value-aligned people to you and your brand.
2. Pick a Theme For Your Posts
I've seen too many Christian personal brands on Instagram whose posts are all over the place.
While you certainly have liberties regarding the design and subject of your posts, you still want a cohesive looking account.
Design: Take @DailyGodpreneur for example. For many years, all of our posts have looked the same: A piece of Bible-based wisdom for entrepreneurs, a nice image to complement the quote, and the same font usage.
Subject: You can keep your message congruent by combining the overarching theme of your account (Christianity) with the business segment of your life (entrepreneurs).
It doesn’t really matter how you keep your page "on brand," only that you keep your designs consistent and the message congruent.
Note: I post off-brand pictures every once in a while, but I try and tie most of my posts back to the main theme of my Daily Godpreneur brand.
3. Get New Followers to Your Blog
Whenever possible, you should have some mention of your blog or website so that people can follow up with you and (hopefully) become paying customers.
Unfortunately, Instagram only allows one link and it has to be in the bio of your account.
On my account, I drive traffic to a page where people can sign up to my weekly newsletter (https://www.dailygodpreneur.com/sign-up).
Whenever you post a new picture, include a short blurb about some relevant promotion or free giveaway that you are running on your blog with “More information in the bio” in parentheses.
If your posts are high quality and your copywriting skills up to par, you should be able to get people over to your website pretty easily.
If you are running a promotion for a new book or trying to sell a new product, it is ok to have a link in the description that redirects followers to a sales landing page. However, I only recommend that you do this for a couple of weeks at the most.
It may be tempting to constantly push new products, however in the long run, you will build more brand loyalty by sending followers directly to your home page.
4. Use IGTV for Preaching Videos
As Christian influencers in the business world, we have a lot to say. So much that we could probably be on the pulpit preaching a message ourselves on Sunday!
Well, your dream can come true through IGTV!
On the @DailyGodpreneur IGTV, I preach little 5-minute sermons of blogs that I've written about. And when I write a series of blog posts, I can convert that to a series of IGTV videos organized on my channel so once someone starts watching one part, they can easily stream through the whole series.
The 2 keys to success with IGTV as a Christian looking to influence other entrepreneurs with a message are
Find Your Format and Create an IGTV Series: while your stories and feed posts can be random highlights from your life, your IGTV videos should be based on a format. They should have a repeatable theme and style that your audience can expect in every episode.
Produce with Purpose: Regardless of your format, your videos have to look well produced and contain the storytelling building blocks that make for a great engaging video on IGTV.
These are just a few great tips from my experience with Daily Godpreneur's IGTV channel! At the end of the day, in order to create an amazing IGTV strategy, you need to know your audience inside-and-out and create content that really resonates with them.
5. Use Canva to Improve Post Designs
Beautiful photos and designs are the keys to success on Instagram.
To be successful on Instagram, you really need to up your graphic design game and create professional-looking images.
No amount of clever hashtagging, geotagging, or even authenticity will help you succeed with Instagram if your photos and designs are 'no bueno.'
We use Canva.com to create templates that we work from when posting on Instagram (create a free Canva account here).
With Canva you can do a lot of marketing materials, from blog graphics to ebooks, flyers, brochures, banners, and so on. But we will focus on how to create Instagram posts.
You might get away with some clumsy or even funny-looking pictures on Instagram stories, but the images on your profile must be inspiring, creative and should stand out to be able to capture your follower' attention. After all, as Christian personal brands, we're trying to influence and create change in the marketplace.
6. Reply to Every Comment and Message
This piece of advice may not be doable for those of you who have hundreds of thousands of followers. Odds are if you are reading this guide, you have not quite reached that level.
At @DailyGodpreneur, we generate a reasonable number of comments (less than 50 per post), so we respond to all comments.
Minus the trolls and spam, of course.
Even if it just a simple “amen 🙏” works wonders.
Engaging with your audience is one of the keys to succeeding with Instagram.
7. Tag Other Christian Entrepreneurs
Don’t be selfish when it comes to promoting other brands and companies on Instagram, especially if they have a large following.
It doesn’t matter how many likes you get from the post.
If your photo is good, the other brand or company may regram it.
At @DailyGodpreneur, we find other Christian business leaders or famous preachers and tag them on photos.
If we get lucky enough to have our image reposted or shared on a story, this increases the number of eyes who see our content, grows our follower base, and adds authority to our brand.
8. Get Personal In Stories
Stories are fun because you can get personal and also promote new stuff you're doing. Since you're growing your Christian PERSONAL brand through Instagram, get personal!
In most businesses, you want to be professional. However, whenever you are growing your personal brand, things are different. It’s not only ok to share about your life. It’s mandatory.
For stories, it doesn’t matter what you are posting as long as you get personal. So post photos about your travels. A fitness transformation. Pictures of you and your significant other. Or even just pictures of your dog.
Let people see behind the curtains. Show them the real you. Otherwise, you are just building an Instagram account to promote another regular business.
And if you're promoting a new product or promotion, do it in a personal way. Be you.
Conclusion
In the hands of a kingdom-minded Godpreneur, Instagram is a powerful tool!
You can use it to quickly grow your Christian personal brand and share your business wisdom and your testimony with thousands of new ears.
But you have to learn how to harness it first.
With the above 8 tips, you can have a good head start.
You have to take action. You have to implement these tips. And you have to be consistent.
Comment below with any of your tips.
P.S. I did a Business bible study called 7 Steps to Launching Your Christian Personal Brand. Check it out:
This business Bible study will help you launch a God-first personal brand that will help you strategically, financially, and personally.
Developing your personal brand starts with launching something new and completely different from what you already have.
Also, coaches and Christian business leaders, you can use, edit, and repurpose the teachings for your own tribe! Check it out.