Social networks are the best way to promote products and services. Instagram has hundreds of millions of daily active users, making it one of the best free tools for reaching your target market. Even if you’re posting effective content consistently, you may not see results. As with any social media platform, building a following and keeping that following takes time. However, there is a way to speed things up a little. In this article, we will tell you how to promote your business on Instagram.
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Instagram Promoted Posts
If you want to learn how to promote things on Instagram, then you will need to know about promoted posts. Instagram promoted posts are posts that you may organically, as you would normally, and pay to have these posts shown to a targeted audience. This can be easily done through the Instagram app, by tapping “Promote” under your chosen post. This process is a simplified version of Instagram ads, and they offer more options to customize the look and distribution of your content. This is one of the many tools that Instagram business accounts have in order to fully understand their audience and see how their content is being interacted with by their audience.
Professional Accounts on Instagram
On Instagram, there are three different options to choose from when you create an account. They are a personal account, a creator account, and a business account. The latter two are both professional Instagram accounts.
Creator Professional Account
Creator accounts were designed for people who are considered public figures, content producers, artists, and influencers. These creators get several new tools through this type of account such as follower and activity trackers, demographic data of followers, and a creator studio dashboard.
Business Professional Account
Business accounts are tailored for businesses, freelancers, and designers who are seeking to broaden their customer base on social media. Some of the features that are exclusive to these types of accounts are Instagram Insights, ranking requests, and additional business labels, as well as messaging that is not available to personal accounts. If you already have a personal account, it is easy to switch your account to a business one. This can be done when you click on your profile, then click settings. This will take you to the “Options” screen, where you can select “Switch to Business Profile”. Switching your profile will allow you to have all the benefits and tools of a business account without creating a new one.
Why Promote on Instagram?
There are many reasons why promoting your posts on Instagram is a great way to grow your business on social media. Even though you’re posting content on Instagram for free, promoting your posts allows you to reach new people, capitalize on momentum from high-performing posts, and create a call to action that brings in more customers online and in real life.
Reach New People
Promoting your posts is a great way to introduce yourself to new people. By getting your foot in the door and reaching the right people, you are able to spread brand awareness. Promoting posts allows you to get your content in front of people who may never have stumbled upon it organically. When you’re filling in the details for your promoted post, you will have the option to either customize your audience. You could also allow Instagram to automatically create an audience. This is based on people who might be interested in your business. This “Lookalike” audience is generated based on your existing Instagram followers, provided that your existing follower list is reflective of the type of people you want to reach, and it can yield pretty good results. This also requires less time, research, and effort than creating your own audience profile through the Ads Manager.
Capitalize on Momentum
If you have a regular post that is already performing well with your existing followers, promoting that post can give you a boost in your follower and engagement metrics. While an organic post can burn out quickly after a few of your followers have had the opportunity to see and engage with it, promoting your post will give it new life and keep it relevant on the platform for longer. If you have a piece of content that you’re proud of and you want to get it out to more people, promoting that post is the way to go. Using Instagram Analytics allows you to avoid targeting the wrong audience, posting too frequently or not frequently enough, driving irrelevant visitors to your website, or ignoring mentions that could lead to future partnerships.
Create a Call to Action
Traditional Instagram posts do not allow you to link to your website or other relevant sources. However, with a promoted post, you gain the option to add a Call-to-Action button to your post. Adding a button like this to posts with high engagement can help you to direct traffic to where you want it to go, effectively converting those Instagram likes and comments into action. Some examples of a Call-to-Action are having a button to “shop”, “download”, or “get offer”.
How to Start
During the setup stage of creating a Call-to-Action button, you’re given a few choices: visit your website, visit your profile, call your business, or get directions to your business. You want to make sure to choose the option that best fits your marketing goals, and this could be a variety of things. It could be building a larger online following, getting more website clicks, or driving more customers into your real-world location. No matter your goal, this feature is a valuable addition that can make your post into a more effective marketing tool.
How to Promote on Instagram
If you want to promote your content on Instagram, there are a few different routes that can be taken. This is all dependent on what your social strategy goals are. You have the option to promote a post, set up a promotional campaign for stories and highlights, and add promotion buttons to your profile.
Promote a Post
When promoting a post on Instagram, there are specific steps to take. When you go to your Instagram, click on the post that you want to promote. By tapping the “Promote” button, you will open the settings of your promotional campaign. From here, you want to choose the destination for the post viewers. This could be your profile, website, or direct messages, and this is a decision that should be based on your goals.
Getting Followers
For example, if you want to grow your Instagram following, opt for getting people to your profile. To showcase your product to your audience and influence them to buy your product, choose your website or direct messages. Second, you need to pick an audience. If you choose the automatic settings, Instagram will show your post to people similar to your current followers. To have the most promising prospects, it is best to set the criteria manually.
Know Your Followers
Having the knowledge of your customer profile will allow you to understand your current customer to the letter, giving you the knowledge of what type of audience will interact with your promoted post the most. While this is more time consuming, it will likely show better results. Finally, Instagram gives you the option of setting a daily budget and duration of the promotion, which can last from 1 to 30 days, as well as give you an overview of your campaign.
Stories and Highlights Promotion
Setting up promotion for your Instagram stories and highlights is similar to promoting a regular post on Instagram. However, the initial steps are different. First, you need to choose a story or highlight, then tap the side menu, and choose the “Promote” command. It is important to consider that this Instagram promotion feature does not support tappable elements. Therefore, you don’t have the option to take advantage of polls, questions, quizzes, countdowns, and other interactive elements in stories and highlights.
Getting Views
There is a plus side to promoting stories and highlights. 500 million people watch stories every day, so there is a massive audience you can reach. Using Instagram stories and highlights for your business allows you to demonstrate your product, promote a company event, and preview a video or post. Demonstrating your product on your stories is a great way to show off to potential customers. Post short clips or a long video that displays what your product or service does and how it can help customers in their daily lives. Stories are also a great way to bring awareness to an event your company is having by letting them know the day, time, and location with a nice graphic. Showing a preview of a video or post on your stories is great exposure to your followers. This allows them to see your feed content without having to scroll endlessly.
Promotion Buttons
You can promote your Instagram account. Promotion buttons on your Instagram profile have a huge benefit. It allows you to streamline the process by offering top-performing posts for promotion. This option is a way out when you don’t know which piece of content to promote.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is a form of paid promotion. There are other ways to promote products and services on Instagram other than on your own Instagram page. If you don’t have a lot of followers or a high engagement rate on your Instagram content, an influencer is a great way to direct your audience to your page. You can even cohost an Instagram Live with an influencer where they talk about your products!
FAQ:
- How do I use Instagram for my business?
- Should I promote posts on Instagram?
- How do I promote posts on Instagram?
- Why should I promote on Instagram?
- What is the best way to promote on Instagram?
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