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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.

Get your business
started on Instagram

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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

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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

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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:

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:

Build multi-platform campaigns with Ads Manager

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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.

  1. 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. 
  2. Tap “Boost” below the image. 
  3. Customize your ad settings. Define your ad goal, identify your target audience, and set your budget and ad duration. 
  4. Tap “Next” once you’ve finalized your ad settings. 
  5.  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. 
  6. 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.

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How to Boost an Instagram Story

Below are the steps to boost an Instagram Story for Instagram promotion.

  1. Go to an active Story or one from your Highlights or archive. 
  2. Tap “Boost” at the bottom of the image or video, and then select “Boost” from the options. 
  3. Customize your ad settings. Identify your target audience, and set your budget and ad duration. 
  4. Tap “Next” for iOS or the forward arrow for Android. 
  5. 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.

  1. Link your Instagram business account to a Facebook account and set up your Facebook Business Page. This is your access point to Ads Manager. 
  2. In Ads Manager, select “Create.”
  3. Choose your Instagram ad objective/s: brand awareness, reach, traffic, engagement, app installs, video views, lead generation, messages, conversions, catalog sales, and store traffic. 
  4. Select “Continue.”
  5. Fill in the details for your ad set. 
  6. 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. 
  7. Select “Continue.”
  8. Complete the other necessary ad details, e.g., ad identity, forma, and related links.
  9. Preview your ad. 
  10. Submit your ad for review.

Target Audience

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Budget

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How To Promote Your IG: 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.

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Partner with an expert to help grow your business

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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.

Running ads on Instagram offers the following advantages:

  1. 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. 
  2. 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. 
  3. 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. 
  4. 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

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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 common best practices for how to promote your IG to keep you on the right track. 

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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!

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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 hello@pathsocial.com

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