Promotion on Instagram is a type of web marketing that involves Instagram.
Instagram promotion feature helps you convert regular Instagram posts, stories, highlights into a sponsored one for a fee. It looks similar to organic posts on feeds or stories but would be identified by the “Sponsored” tag that appears below the handle.
Promotion would let you add a call to action that is clickable for the feed or a swipe-up option for stories. With the Instagram promotion, you can introduce your brand, announce an event or sales, contests, giveaways, influencer collaborations, etc.
Instagram promotions will help you increase brand awareness and recognition, grow your Instagram followers, find new customers, boost sales, create a community, etc.
With roughly one billion monthly active users, Instagram belongs to the most popular social network worldwide.
Instagram is a huge platform that has the potential of bringing in a lot of revenue.
Why Promoting on Instagram?
- You would reach more audience beyond the one you already have
- Instagram lets you target a specific audience
- You have access to deeper insights, not the normal likes and comments. You will have deeper analytics on engagement, demographics, and impressions
- There’s a contact button straight to your DM without the stress of going to your bio
Instagram promotion vs. Instagram ad
The purpose of an ad is to convert and so there are so many features peculiar to this.
Instagram ads offer more preference for targeting.
While the purpose of a promotion is for visibility. It is to make a particular post get seen by a lot of people. The goal is to get a lot of people to visit your page and not necessarily to convert.
Promotion is a good way to take your content marketing to the next level in terms of profile views, likes, comments, and shares. This is because as more people visit your page, they see more of your content and interact more with them.
The “Sponsored post” tag is present in both of them but the Instagram algorithm treats them both differently.
Instagram promotion can be done directly with your phone but with ads, you need to do it with ads manager.
How does Instagram promotion work?
Instagram promotion works by popularity. Make your content(s) go viral beyond the audience you already have. Your content will appear on a lot of people’s feeds and they get to interact with your post and visit your profile for other posts. They would probably follow your page.
- Profile visits: Instagram will make sure your page is popular by targeting the people that are more likely to visit your page. They use a particular algorithm for this.
- Website traffic: If you want more people to visit your website, Instagram will use a particular algorithm to make sure people click on your website
- Promotion views: This algorithm will give you information about the people that see your post. It’s for brand awareness and visibility.
When do you use Instagram promotion?
You should use Instagram promotion when your goal is visibility, reach, and engagement.
Things you can promote on Instagram
In Instagram promotion, there is a wide range of options; photo, video, carousels, story ads, reels, etc.
You can promote the following on Instagram:
A post you’ve shared:
This works the same way as a Facebook boost. You can promote a video or picture that has gathered more shares, likes, and comments. High engagement shows that people like the post and there’s a higher possibility that other people not in your audience will like it too.
This gives the content extra awareness and visibility to more people.
A story from your profile, highlights, or story archive:
This helps you capture authentic moments that speak to your business. Though it is limited to photos taken with an Instagram camera or posts only in a vertical form, it’s still a good way to promote your content.
Creating a promotion from the promotion button on your profile:
This is best if you don’t know which post to use for your promotion. Instagram will recommend which post they think will do well. This option allows you to start another new campaign from your Instagram profile.
How to boost post on Instagram
First, your profile should be a business account. Personal accounts do not have the promotion features.
You can convert your account to a business account from the settings in your profile.
- Switch to a business account from your profile
- Add the link to your website or contact buttons
- Be sure to include everything required of your business
On your profile, tap the promotion button. Choose the post you would like to promote and move forward from there.
Set your goal: Here you get to decide your goals for the promotion. Decide whether it’s for more profile visits, more website visits, or more promotion views.
Decide your post’s call to action: This depends on your goal for the promotion. Is it for more profile visits?, Engagement? sign-ups? visiting your website? visit your physical store? call a number? etc. It could learn more, call now, sign up, watch more, shop now, contact us, book now, etc.
Select your target audience: Here there’s the option of creating an automatic, local, or manual audience.
- Automatic: This targets people who are similar to your followers based on demographics. This is where you let Instagram do their thing. They also target people that have engaged with your content in the past. This is not a good option if you want to target entirely new people. This is bad if you don’t have many followers that Instagram would model from.
- Local: This targets people within a particular location. There’s an option of age, range, and gender. This is suitable for promoting events within a location. It also targets those that are similar to your audience in terms of location.
- Manual: Here you have the control. You create your audience based on location, interest, and more. It depends on your specific objectives.
Instagram provides the basic parameters such as location, age, gender but you are allowed to target certain interests(Up to 10 interests). It can range from music, events, sexual orientation, hobbies, etc.
Set your budgets and promotion duration: After the age, gender, location, and interests, you will get to decide your budget, duration, and distribution. Instagram gives you an estimate of your reach depending on your daily budget and how long you would like to run the promotion. It would also decide if stories or feeds would be better for your selected audience.
Maximum limits for Instagram promotion are set at $1000 daily and up to 30 days on the duration for a maximum reach of 400k-1million people
Review your promotion: This is where you make sure everything is in place. You check for the following:
- The post you will be promoting
- The destination all traffic will be sent
- What your action button will say
- How your audience will be targeted
- Your budget and promotion duration
Keep checking insights: This will help you decide whether you will continue the promotion or terminate it.
How to promote your Instagram story
- Tap on the profile picture to access your story
- Tap on the three dots on the bottom right and select promote
If you wish to promote an old or archived story, go to your Instagram profile, tap on the three dots and select “archives”. You would access any of the stories you want to promote from there.
- Select your goals
- Select your target audience
- Determine your budget and duration
- Click on create a promotion to complete the process
The best practices for Instagram promotion includes:
- Share relatable contents
- Include a good call to action
- Leverage Instagram insights to know what works
- Set up your target audience manually
- Test and try to see what works
- Post consistently(So people will have something to see) for better results.
- Consider what’s trending
In conclusion, Instagram promotion is not a one size fits all thing. It is best to keep testing the different forms of content, whether pictures, videos, carousel, etc. Always measure your results to know what works best and leverage that information for your future promotions.
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