Instagram
Promotion: Developing the Best Paid Strategy for Your Business
Effective Instagram promotion is all about location, location, location. You want your content to top the news feeds of your target audience, the Explore page, and Instagram search results.
IG promotion is an aggressively competitive game that requires a multifaceted strategy to win. From DIY best practices to third-party partnerships, here are surefire tactics for leveraging paid Instagram promotion services like a pro.
What Is
Instagram Promotion?
Instagram promotion is algorithm-friendly sponsored or paid content promotion designed to boost brand awareness and metrics. This includes increasing follower numbers and engagement rates to achieve other business goals on the platform. Knowing how to promote your IG profile and posts can revolutionize your success.
Through Instagram’s native promotion tools, business accounts can convert regular posts, Reels, and Stories into ads. You can do this by boosting or accessing Meta Ads Manager to create advanced advertising campaigns across multiple platforms. You can also do paid Instagram promotion via influencer marketing or outsourcing to third-party companies specializing in Instagram growth strategy.
Did You Know?
There are more than 1 billion active users on IG every month. That’s why businesses, big and small, should buy Instagram promotions to cut through the noise and reach their target audience. In addition to advanced and intelligent audience targeting, Instagram promotion helps businesses:
- Gain valuable, actionable insights to improve their strategy
- Build a highly engaged community of real, organic followers
- Stay competitive within their industry or niche
Investing in Instagram promotion is a must for businesses if they want to thrive on this busy platform. All the tools you need to create the right e-commerce marketing strategy for your brand are right at your fingertips. Of course, you need to know how to use these tools to your advantage. Let’s take a closer look at the “hows” of Instagram promotion.
How Does Instagram Promotion Work?
Currently, Instagram accounts have two options for Instagram promotion: boosting and Meta Ads Manager. You can boost regular posts and stories, while Meta Ads Manager is an advanced tool for business accounts. Let’s dive deeper into these ways to promote your IG account.
Boosting Regular Posts and Stories for Instagram Promotion
Boosting regular posts is a quick and easy way to promote Instagram pages effectively. With just a few clicks, you can turn any image, video, or carousel into an ad—even posts with product tags.
Simply choose your goal, define your target audience, set a budget, and decide how long your ad will run. The cost depends on your budget and duration.
You can boost active Stories, as well as those in your Highlights or archive. When boosting, you can add up to five interactive elements:
- Location sticker
- Hashtag sticker
- Tappable text
- @mention sticker (for tagging creators or partners)
- Countdown sticker
- Polling sticker (only for ads without a pre-existing post)
- Swipe Up CTA sticker (only for ads without a pre-existing post)
Boosted Stories run as long as you set, even beyond the usual 24-hour limit, turning them into lasting ads.
Key Features of Meta Ads Manager for Instagram Promotion
Meta Ads Manager offers advanced tools for creating multi-platform ad campaigns. You can easily build and edit ads, manage budgets, schedules, and placements, and monitor performance—all from one dashboard. Here are the key features that’ll help you promote your Instagram:
- Create ad campaigns with specific objectives aligned with your business goals.
- Target smarter by defining broad or exclusive audiences.
- Set a daily or lifetime campaign budget.
- Automatically run ads across Facebook’s apps and services.
- Make real-time changes to your budget, audience, placements, and creatives.
- Personalize ads using dynamic creative elements like images, videos, and text.
- Conduct A/B tests for optimized results.
- Access real-time insights with comprehensive reporting tools.
Promote Instagram Post
Here’s a quick walk-through of how to use Instagram Promotion via Boosting posts, Stories, and Meta Ad Manager.
How To Boost an Instagram Post
Here’s your quick guide to boosting an Instagram feed post:
- First, make sure you convert your profile to a business account.
- Go to your profile and select the post you want to boost (make sure the image is under 8 MB).
- Tap‘Boost’ below the image.
- Customize your ad by setting your goal, target audience, budget, and duration.
- Tap ‘Next’ to finalize your settings.
- If your Instagram business account isn’t linked to Facebook, you’ll be prompted to do so, or you can skip it.
- Next, tap ‘Preview ad’ to make sure you’re happy with your ad placement and duration.
- When you’re done, press ‘Boost post’ and leave the rest to the algorithm.
Your ad will be reviewed according to Instagram’s policies, and you’ll get notifications throughout the process. You can also create an ad for a new post before publishing it—just toggle on ‘Create Ad.’
How To Boost an Instagram Story
A smart way to increase engagement on Instagram is through boosting your Story posts. Here’s how:
How To Boost an Instagram Story
A smart way to increase engagement on Instagram is through boosting your Story posts. Here’s how:
- First, make sure you don’t have too many complex stickers, emojis, GIFs, or links in your post.
- Choose an active Story or one from your Highlights or archive.
- Tap ‘Boost story’.
- Customize your ad by defining your audience, budget, and duration.
- Tap ‘Next’ (iOS) or the forward arrow (Android).
- Hit ‘Boost Post’ to finalize.
Sit back and relax while Instagram reviews your post and kicks off your Story campaign.
How To Use Meta Ads Manager for Instagram Promotion
Ready to dive into Instagram promotion with Meta Ads Manager? Follow these steps:
- Link your Instagram business account to Facebook and set up your Facebook Business Page—your gateway to Meta Ads Manager.
- In Meta Ads Manager, click ‘Create’ and choose your ad objective. Ensure you pick an option that supports Instagram ad placement. These include brand awareness, reach, traffic, engagement, app installs, video views, lead generation, messages, conversions, catalog sales, or store traffic.
- Click ‘Continue’ and fill in the details for your ad set.
- For ad placement, choose ‘Manual placements’ to run your ad on Instagram only. Or select ‘Advantage+ placements’ to run it across all Facebook platforms.
- Click ‘Continue’ and finalize your ad’s identity, format, and links.
- Preview your ad and submit it for review.
Congratulations! You now know how to promote your business on Instagram. You’re set to launch your Instagram ad like a pro!
How To Promote Your IG: Alternative
Approaches
Instagram promotion is simple and versatile. It offers native tools that make creating everything from boosted posts to tailored ad campaigns easy. But behind the scenes, powerful algorithms are doing the heavy lifting.
Want to add a ‘human touch’ to your promos? Or maybe ad management just isn’t your thing. In that case, consider partnering with an influencer or a social media agency to handle it for you.
Instagram Promotion Through Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing via collaborations has been a go-to strategy for years. On Instagram, these collabs have evolved into something even more powerful. Finding the right influencer and building a robust and win-win relationship can give your Instagram promotion a sustainable, long-term boost. This approach is perfect for helping you reach the right audience, gain new followers, and drive engagement.
Instagram Partners is another option worth checking out. This feature has expert companies vetted by Facebook to help you run ads, sell products, and connect with customers seamlessly.
Instagram Promotion Led by a Social Media Agency
Do Instagram Promotions Work?
Paid Instagram promotion services are a powerful way to achieve your marketing goals and drive sustained growth.
- 60% of users discover new products on Instagram.
- Instagram videos have led to an 80% increase in time spent on the app.
- Over 200 million users visit at least one business profile daily.
- Optimized Reach: Instagram’s ad system thrives with a larger audience, allowing your ad to reach more of the right people at a lower cost. This is especially true when run across multiple platforms.
- Boosted Engagement: As a visually-driven platform, Instagram is a top choice for users seeking inspiration. With diverse ad formats like Story and Explore ads, businesses have more ways to connect with their target audience.
- Effortless Promotion: Turning a post or Story into an ad is as simple as boosting it. Even without an Instagram account, you can run ads through your Facebook page.
- Actionable Insights: Track your ad performance using Instagram Insights. Analyze key metrics and fine-tune your promotion strategy to keep hitting your objectives.
Instagram Paid Promotion Best Practices
Whether you aim to grow your followers, boost engagement, drive sales, generate leads, or increase website traffic, Instagram paid promotions deliver. Even with the advanced optimization Instagram ads offer, you might need to experiment to find the perfect strategy. Here are some best practices to keep you on the right track:
- Test, Learn, Improve: Success isn’t one-size-fits-all. Experiment with different ad variables, track the outcomes and adjust your approach to hit your goals. Try different content formats—like images, videos, or carousels—to see what resonates most with your audience.
- Get Creative: Whatever format you choose, think outside the box. Show off your product from unique angles, use surprising backgrounds, or create engaging videos. Whatever you do, tell a story your audience will want to follow through to the end.
- Expand Your Reach: Once you’ve nailed down your Instagram ad strategy, take it to the next level by running your ads on Facebook to tap into an even larger audience.
- Stay Consistent: Consistency is key on Instagram. Keep your aesthetics and voice aligned with your brand, post regularly, and ensure your messaging supports your business goals. This will help you maintain momentum and achieve lasting success.
Get More Instagram Followers With Path Social
There are other effective ways to do paid promotion on Instagram. Fast-track your Instagram growth with Path Social’s expert strategy. Build a strong presence and attract high-quality, genuinely engaged followers. With advanced AI targeting and a skilled team of strategists, Path Social gets you to your Instagram goals faster! Sign up now and start taking your Insta account to new heights!
