Instagram Promotion: Developing the Best Paid Strategy for Your Business
Effective Instagram promotion is all about location, location, location. You want your content to land a prime location on the news feeds of your target audience; a prominent spot in the Explore page; and a high rank in Instagram search results. Instagram promotion is an aggressively competitive game — one which requires a multi-faceted strategy to help you make the grade. From do-it-yourself best practices to third-party partnerships, here are surefire tactics for leveraging paid Instagram promotion services to get you all the way to the top.
What is Instagram Promotion?
Instagram promotion is sponsored or paid content promotion that’s algorithmically designed to boost brand awareness, follower numbers, and engagement rates and to achieve other business goals on the platform.
Through Instagram’s native promotion tools, business accounts can convert regular posts and Stories into ads through boosting, or access Ads Manager to create more advanced advertising campaigns on Instagram and other platforms. Paid Instagram promotion can also be done through influencer marketing or outsourced to third-party companies that specialize in Instagram growth strategy.
Businesses, both big and small, need paid Instagram promotion to more effectively seek out and reach their target audience among the more than 1 billion monthly active users on the platform. In addition to advanced and intelligent audience targeting, Instagram promotion helps businesses derive valuable and actionable performance insights to help them improve their Instagram strategy, build a highly engaged community, and stay competitive within their industry.
Investing in Instagram promotion is a must for businesses if they want to thrive on the fiercely busy and packed platform. All the tools you need to devise the right ecommerce marketing strategy for your brand are right at your fingertips. Of course, you must know how to use these tools to your advantage. Let’s take a closer look at the hows of Instagram promotion.
Sell directly on Instagram
How Does Instagram Promotion Work?
Currently, Instagram business accounts have two options for Instagram promotion: boosting, which can be done with regular posts and Stories, and using Ads Manager.
Boosting Regular Posts and Stories for Instagram Promotion
Boosting regular posts is the most direct method for paid Instagram promotion. You can turn any post you shared on Instagram into an ad by boosting it, and it only takes a few clicks. You can boost an image, video, or carousel post, as well as posts with product tags. When you boost a post, you need to identify your goal, or the destination where people who click your ad will be directed. You will also define your target audience. You can specify certain demographics or choose look-alike audiences. And then you’ll set a budget and duration. The cost of your boosted post depends on how much you’re willing to spend and how long you want the ad to run.
Simple and flexible tools to meet your goals
You can boost Stories that are active, as well as any Story in your Highlights or archive. When you boost a Story for Instagram promotion, you can only use up to five interactive elements which are limited to the following:
- Location sticker
- Hashtag sticker
- Tappable text
- @mention sticker (to tag the content creator for UGC, or your business partner’s profile)
- A countdown sticker
- Polling sticker (only available for ads that are created without a pre-existing post)
- Swipe UP CTA sticker (only available for ads that are created without a pre-existing post)
Boosted Stories run for as long as the duration you have set, i.e., an active Story you have boosted will not expire after 24 hours and will continue running as an ad.
Boosting Regular Posts and Stories for Instagram Promotion
Ads Manager provides businesses with advanced tools to build multi-platform ad campaigns. When you use Ads Manager for Instagram promotion, you can create and edit ads; manage ad budgets, schedules, and placements; and keep track of their performance from a single dashboard. Below are the key features of Ads Manager:
- Create an ad campaign with specific parameters, such as an advertising objective that fits your business goals.
- Smarter ad targeting which allows you to define a broad or exclusive audience.
- Set up an overall campaign budget and decide whether you want it to be applied daily or throughout your campaign’s lifetime.
- Automatically run ads across Facebook’s multiple apps and services.
- Make ad changes as needed, e.g., edit your budget, audience, placement options and creative.
- Improve and personalize ads with a dynamic creative approach, which combines images, videos, and text.
- Perform A/B tests for each of your campaigns.
- Take advantage of reporting tools to get real-time insights.
Build multi-platform campaigns with Ads Manager
Promote Instagram Post
Let’s get into the nuts and bolts of promoting an Instagram post.
How to Boost an Instagram Post
Here’s your Instagram promotion how-to for boosting a regular feed post.
- Go to your profile and select the post you want to boost. Instagram recommends against boosting a post with an image that’s bigger than 8 MB.
- Tap “Boost” below the image.
- Customize your ad settings. Define your ad goal, identify your target audience, and set your budget and ad duration.
- Tap “Next” once you’ve finalized your ad settings.
- If your Instagram business account is not yet linked to a Facebook account, you’ll be prompted to do this next. You can also choose to “Skip” this step.
- Tap “Create Ad” under Review.
Your ad will still be subject to approval and will be reviewed to make sure it meets Instagram’s ad policies. You will receive a notification when your ad is submitted for review, when it is being reviewed, if it’s approved or disapproved, and when the ad run ends. You can also turn a new post into an ad before publishing it on Instagram; just toggle on the “Create Ad” option.
Website URL
Call to Action
How to Boost an Instagram Story
Below are the steps to boost an Instagram Story for Instagram promotion.
- Go to an active Story or one from your Highlights or archive.
- Tap “Boost” at the bottom of the image or video, and then select “Boost” from the options.
- Customize your ad settings. Identify your target audience, and set your budget and ad duration.
- Tap “Next” for iOS or the forward arrow for Android.
- Tap “Create Ad.”
Your Story ad will be submitted for review.
How to Use Ads Manager for Instagram Promotion
Using Ads Manager for Instagram promotion involves a more detailed process. Here are the basic steps.
- Link your Instagram business account to a Facebook account and set up your Facebook Business Page. This is your access point to Ads Manager.
- In Ads Manager, select “Create.”
- Choose your Instagram ad objective/s: brand awareness, reach, traffic, engagement, app installs, video views, lead generation, messages, conversions, catalog sales, and store traffic.
- Select “Continue.”
- Fill in the details for your ad set.
- For ad placement, you can select “Manual placements” and then select “Instagram” to run your ad on Instagram only; or you can select “Automatic placements” to run your ad across all Facebook platforms.
- Select “Continue.”
- Complete the other necessary ad details, e.g., ad identity, forma, and related links.
- Preview your ad.
- Submit your ad for review.
Target Audience
Budget
Instagram Promotion: Alternative Approaches
Instagram promotion using the platform’s native marketing tools is pretty straightforward and standardized, while also allowing creative and strategic customization. Whether you have a boosted post or Story or a sophisticated ad campaign — customized according to your preferences and objectives — the entire “machinery” is still run by complicated and intelligent algorithmic functions.
If you want your Instagram promotion to have the “human touch,” or if running and managing ads is simply not in your wheelhouse, you can hand over the task to an influencer or a social media agency.
Instagram Promotion Through Influencer Marketing
Collaborations with influencers have been a popular marketing practice for many years. But as with everything else on Instagram, business-influencer partnerships have also become more complex. When you find the right influencer and are able to build a strong and mutually beneficial relationship with them, you’ll have a sustainable and consistently rewarding Instagram promotion strategy. Influencer marketing is ideal for businesses that are still in the early stages of Instagram growth and need help reaching the right audience, gaining new followers, and boosting content engagement.
Recently Instagram also introduced Instagram Partners, which are companies that are considered experts in their fields and vetted by Facebook to help businesses on Instagram run ads, sell products, and engage with their customers.
Partner with an expert to help grow your business
Instagram Promotion Led by a Social Media Agency
If you want an Instagram promotion plan of action devised and executed by experienced professionals, you can team up with a social media agency or growth service company. Take note that most of these companies use automation to deliver Instagram services, such as automated likes and follows. There are some agencies that still perform old-fashioned, hands-on social media account management to deliver organic growth. The best ones combine advanced and intelligent targeting technology and the expert knowledge and skills of social media strategists to provide the best results.
Do Instagram Promotions Work?
Paid Instagram promotion services have proven highly effective in delivering marketing objectives and stimulating and sustaining growth on the platform.
Here are some relevant Instagram statistics according to Facebook:
- 60% of users discover new products through Instagram.
- Instagram videos have contributed to an 80% increase in time spent on the platform.
- More than 200 million users visit at least one business profile on Instagram daily.
Running ads on Instagram offers the following advantages:
- Optimized delivery. The platform’s delivery system works best when there are more people to choose from. This means an ad can reach more of the right people at a lower cost when you run it across multiple platforms.
- Increased engagement. As a popular visual platform, Instagram is highly preferred by users looking for inspiration. The various ad formats available on Instagram, such as Instagram Story ads and Explore ads, create more opportunities for businesses to reach and engage with their customers and target audience.
- Quick and easy Instagram promotion process. You can simply boost an existing or new Instagram post or Story to turn it into an ad. If you don’t have an Instagram account, you can also run an Instagram ad using your Facebook page.
- Instagram Insights. You can keep track of your ads’ performance through a professional dashboard. Analyze metrics relevant to your objectives and make the necessary changes to your Instagram promotion strategy where needed.
Professional Dashboard
Instagram Paid Promotion Best Practices
Whether you’re looking to gain more followers, increase content engagement, boost your sales or conversions, generate new leads, or drive more traffic to your website, Instagram paid promotion will deliver your desired results. Even with the benefit of advanced optimization offered by Instagram ads, you may still have to go through a trial-and-error phase before you are able to determine a strategy that works best for you. Here are Instagram promotion best practices to keep you on the right track.
- Test, learn, and improve. An ad’s success depends on many variables. Test each variable, keep track of and learn from the results, and make the necessary changes to improve these results and achieve your ad goals. For example, you can play with different content formats — find out whether images, videos, or carousels work best with your type of content and audience.
- Get creative with your content. Whatever format you choose, try various ways of presenting your content. For photos and carousels, you can show different angles of a product or present them in front of unique and surprising backgrounds. For videos/video clips, show a product being used, such as in a how-to video. Or tell a story that people will want to follow until the end.
- Widen your reach. Once you’re comfortable creating Instagram ads and you have figured the best strategy, run your ads on Facebook to reach a bigger audience.
- Be consistent. Consistency in aesthetics and voice is highly valued on Instagram, and even more so when you’re growing a brand on the platform. Regular posting and ensuring that your messaging is aligned with your business goals are also crucial to achieving and maintaining momentum to grow faster and attain long-term success.
Get More Instagram Followers With Path Social
Accelerate your Instagram growth by placing your Instagram promotion in the capable hands of an expert in Instagram growth strategy — a company like Path Social. Build a strong presence on Instagram, with a community of genuinely interested and highly engaged followers. Path Social’s proprietary advanced AI targeting algorithm and in-house team of social media strategists will get you closer to your Instagram growth goals more quickly and more efficiently!
Path Social is not Instagram affiliated or a host for Instagram content. All downloaded data and content are the property of the Instagram content creator. For any questions or concerns please reach out to [email protected]
