We’re back with part two of our Instagram webinar recap. Be sure to check out part one of our recap or watch the recording below.
Promoting Your Content
As we mentioned earlier, a business account on Instagram allows you the ability to promote your content in order to reach a larger audience and potentially gain more followers. In addition to putting your content in front of more users, promoting a post gives you the ability to give a very direct call to action. Once you’ve chosen a call to action, you can select a target audience by setting a location, interests, age, and gender; or you can allow Instagram to choose for you. If you’ve linked your account to your Facebook page, you can use your default Facebook audience. Then, you can either select one of the budget options or set your own budget, as well as the duration for the promotion. Finally, you’ll get to review your order and enter your payment method. If your account is connect to your Facebook page, your default method for Facebook should carry over so you don’t have to enter new information. Click “Promote” and you’re done.
Instagram Ads
So what’s the difference between a promoted post and an Instagram ad? For starters, you create ads in your Facebook ads manager settings which allows you to run the same ad on both platforms. Ads allow you to choose more specific marketing objectives in the categories of Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion. Once you’ve chosen your specific objective, you choose your audience settings, placements (where you want your ads to be shown) – which can be customized or you can use the automatic settings, and then define your budget and schedule your ads.
Next, you’ll choose a format for your ads such as a single image, single video, slideshow, etc., and then make sure your Instagram page is connected. After that, you add in your text and preview the post. Once everything looks good, you place your order and you’re all set.
Growing Your Audience
When it comes to building an audience, there are several ways you can work to grow your audience. The best way is to have conversations with your audience, so respond to their comments and/or like them. Some other good tips for growing your followers include:
- Creating a bio that accurately describes your business and explains why people should follow you, as well as what they can expect from you.
- Following and engaging with other users that post content related to your brand, business, or industry. Searching relevant hashtags is one of the easiest ways to do this.
- Cross-promoting on your other social media profiles.
- Using hashtags to help your content gain traction.
- Running a giveaway or contest and ask followers to share about it with their followers.
Determining Success
Now that you’ve created your profile and starting posting content, you’re probably wondering how to tell if your efforts are working. Everyone with a business account will be able to see four things about each post:
- Impressions – The total number of times a post has been seen.
- Reach – The number of unique accounts who saw the post.
- Engagement – The number of unique accounts that liked, saved, or commented on a post.
- Saved – The number of unique accounts that saved a post.
These four points can give you a good idea of the types of content your audience is interested in, but if you want even more information, you’ll want to reach 100 followers as quickly as you can. Once a business account reaches 100 followers, Instagram will allow you to see the demographic information regarding your followers in terms of location, age, and gender. Having that information in hand can help you improve your content strategy so you are producing content your audience is more likely to engage with.
We hope you feel more comfortable with the idea of using Instagram. As always, feel free to get in touch if you have any questions, and if you are already on Instagram, you can follow us @rps123shoot!