With growing competition, it’s time that you rethink how to promote your Instagram account. Why so? It’s because Instagram is gaining immense popularity among marketers and influencers, which means what worked in the past isn’t going to yield you the same results. This makes it essential for every brand to have as many tactics as possible to promote their brand.

Now you might be thinking, how does the promotion work? And why should you use it instead of simply paying for advertisement? Valid questions. In this article, we’ll see answers to these and other important things related to Instagram promotions. Also, know how you can master the art of promotion.

What are Instagram Promotions?

If you’re familiar with Instagram ads, you must have heard of Instagram promotions. Both promotions and ads are aimed towards increasing visibility and engagement. Whereas ad is best suited for getting more conversions, promotions take a high-performing post, a level up. It basically works towards ramping up likes, views, shares, and more.

If your aim is to increase brand awareness, that’s where promotion comes in. So, let’s see how Instagram promotions work and how to promote your brand on Instagram?

How do Instagram Promotions Work?

Instagram Promotions are non-advertisement, normal posts that you would like to convert to a sponsored post with elevated reach. These posts show up in the same spot with written Sponsored on them, but Instagram treats them in a different way in their algorithm, and these can be created from your business profile.

Here, Instagram will suggest you which posts can do well as advertisement in their opinion. You can go with the suggestion if you are unsure about which post you would like to promote.

Remember, the purpose of using Instagram promotion is to receive maximum reach and visibility.

How can you start with Instagram Promotion?

  1. Choose any posts you’ll like to convert into promotion and proceed further.
  2. Next, you will see a screen where you can decide your post’s Call To Action. This is a crucial step and totally depends on your objective behind the promotion. So, take your time before deciding. You can either redirect users to your website or profile.
  3. After you select your Call to action, Instagram asks you to choose your target audience.
    Here’s how you can select your target audience :There are millions and millions of Instagram users worldwide, and there’s no way you can reach all of them. That’s why it becomes crucial to be specific and selective about who your target audience is going to be.

    While setting up a promotion, you can select your desired audience in these three ways :

    • Automatic Audience –

      This option target audience who are similar to your existing followers. It will also target those who have been engaged and shown interest in your content previously. However, if you try to attract completely new users, this might not be the best option.

    • Local Audience –

      This option target people within a radius of a certain location along with options like gender and age. You can go for this option if you have to promote any last-minute event at a particular location. Based on location, it will show posts to those who are similar to existing followers.

    • Manual Audience –

      For more accuracy and precision, you can choose the manual audience option. Here, you can create your own audience based on location, age, preferences, and more. This option is best if you want to have more control.

  4. After everything is done, Instagram directs you to the last page, where you can select a budget, duration, and distribution. Instagram provides you with an estimation depending on your budget. The maximum limit limits are $ 1 000 spent daily up to 30 days duration for a possible reach of 400k – 1 million people.

Instagram also breaks down your promotion analytics in their Insight feature available to business accounts only.

Instagram Insights

IG suggests spending at least $ 10 to promote your post. But the final decision is always in your hands. With Instagram Insights, you can have a track of all types of engagement people are having with your profile, including:

  • Website clicks
  • Follows
  • Comments
  • Impressions
  • Number of people who got directions
  • How many people discovered you
  • Number of people who contacted you
  • Profile visits
  • Shares

Apart from this, you can also have a quick review of your best and worst-performing posts and the level of engagement you’re getting by applying the following filters :

  • Comments
  • Likes
  • Reach
  • Impressions
  • Engagement

If you still want more detailed analytics, you can select a post and click the View Insights button.

That’s how Instagram Promotions work, but you always don’t have to pay to promote your brand; here are some free tips using which you can promote your page on Instagram :

Ways to Promote your Instagram page

  1. Increase your Content Production

    There’s no limit to what you can publish on your account. From product images, customer photos, memes to videos, you can fill up your Instagram feed with any of the following.

    To find out what works best for your audience, you have to experiment a bit. That will require you to post different stuff and monitor which kind of posts get more engagement. Though, it doesn’t mean you have to post many times a day. The best practice is to post at least once and at maximum 3 times a day. If you post more than 3 times a day, your audience may lose interest or find you spam.

    The key here is to be visible among the audience. It’s because Instagram moves much faster than it used to and brands have to ramp up their content if they want to keep up. To post content that your audience will love, you have to form a comprehensive strategy.

  2. Focus on people-centric content

    You might be using Instagram to increase your brand awareness and boosting sales, but we shouldn’t ignore the fact that Instagram is about sharing experiences also. People tend to pay interest to relatable content. You can post pictures of customers using your products or services in a real-world setting. The most successful brands on Instagram are those which can advertise their products without shouting BUY NOW.

    In order to post user-generated content on your feed, you have to understand how hashtags play a crucial role, and this leads us to our next point.

  3. Use Industry and Branded Hashtags

    Every small and big brand should create a branded hashtag to encourage the promotion and sharing on behalf of their followers. You can create your own hashtag so people can find you easily on Instagram.

    Beyond branded hashtags, you should try using some general hashtags or community hashtags related to your industry. Using extra tags makes your post searchable and increases your reach. You can add as many hashtags as you want, but the best practice is to use nine hashtags at least.

  4. Collaborate with influencers to extend your reach

    Influencer marketing is one of the best ways to promote your brand. Influencer marketing is basically a paid relationship with a well-established influencer having a sizeable and engaged follower count. Influencers can help your brand a lot in reaching new users.

    You can spot influencers through manual searching or using hashtags. While choosing an influencer, make sure you select someone whose followers actually engage with their content.

To Sum Up

We hope now Instagram Promotion isn’t unfamiliar to you. Promotions can give you the boost you may have been lacking. Luckily, when it comes to Instagram promotions, you have many paid and free tips to experiment with.