As of February of 2022, Instagram has two billion active users and the platform is still growing. It was not so long ago that they announced that they had 700 million active users, and now it is over two billion.
This means there is a great deal of marketing potential with Instagram. It has one of the highest levels of engagement of all the major social platforms at around 4.2%. Facebook and Twitter combined can only manage around 0.1% engagement.
Let’s go over the major benefits of advertising on Instagram:
Instagram’s User Base Is Huge And Still Growing
Even though Instagram is not new to the scene, it’s still experiencing rapid growth. More demographics are adopting the social platform than ever before, with many being introduced to the photo and video sharing app during the Covid-19 pandemic. Surprisingly, a high numbers of those pandemic users, have actually stuck with the platform and continue to use it daily.
The estimates suggest that this growth will continue over the next few years.
Instagram Is Connected To Facebook
Facebook owns Instagram, so you will find targeting your audience a lot easier using Facebook data and tools. You can set up everything for your Instagram Ads through Facebook including audience identification, budgeting and ad creation.
This is great news if you have used Facebook Ads before. There is no need for you to learn about Instagram advertising from scratch. You can just jump right in and create ads for both social platforms.
Instagram Is Known For Non-Intrusive Ads
Instagram Ads will not annoy Instagram users like ads on other social platforms do. They appear seamlessly to the user, which helps with the level of engagement. This is a major benefit as your ads are less likely to be skipped.
This is also a great thing for the reputation of your brand and overall brand recognition. After all, no business owner wants people to begin associating his or her product/service with being annoyed and frustrated. That’s just poor branding right there!
Instagram Ads Enjoy A Higher Engagement Rate
Engagement is everything with social media marketing, and Instagram has the highest levels of engagement of any social platform. If you create your ads properly then you will receive comments, likes and shares like never before.
Each Instagram slide is a different popular character from the film.
Click here to learn more about the five distinct types of Instagram Ads.
Instagram Measures Ad Success In Brand Awareness Metrics
With Instagram Ad campaigns, success is measured based upon awareness. You will be able to see your follower counts and growth, the reach that your ads are getting and the level of likes and comments.
Instagram Was Built For Mobile
These days, everyone has a smartphone with a high quality camera included. Smartphone users are usually very interested in social media, and Instagram is usually their number one choice. Many users will user their camera phones as an amateur photographer and post their pictures on their Instagram account.
Instagram Delivers Better Results
Instagram Ads usually provide the best results in terms of cost and return on investment. It is a very effective marketing channel, and it is quicker and easier to post compelling ads on Instagram than it is on other social media channels.
If you are not taking advantage of the marketing opportunities provided by Instagram, then you need to start right now. You can set up an Instagram account for free and easily convert it to a business account so that you can place ads.
The user base is huge and will only get bigger. With the Facebook integration, you can identify your target audience precisely and target them with your advertising messages. There are different types of ads that you can post depending on the needs of your business.
When you know your audience really well, you will be able to provide them with exactly what they are looking for using Instagram Ads. The cost per click is cheaper than other platforms, so you will get the best bang for your buck.
Now you can see why Instagram Ads are among the top choices for businesses that want to get the word out about their brand, products, and services.
But what does an Instagram Ad look like, and how does it work, exactly? We’re going to answer that next.
What exactly does an Instagram look like?
There are different types of Instagram Ads, but the good thing is that they look a lot like regular posts. They will have the word “Sponsored” on them, but apart from that they look and feel like a normal post.
With ordinary posts, it is not possible to add external links to your website. You can add direct links in Instagram Ads, as well as a call-to-action button to persuade a user to take a specific action. The different types of ad have different call-to-action buttons available.
How do you create an Instagram Ad?
Facebook owns Instagram and you can use the Facebook Ad tools when setting up your Instagram Ads. This is good because you can use the advanced tools on Facebook to target your specific audience based on demographics, interests, location and more.
You can satisfy a number of business objectives with Instagram Ads, including the following:
Brand Awareness
If you want to increase the awareness of your brand, then you need to select this option. When you do this, you will maximize the number of impressions for your ad among the audience that you have specified.
Reach
If you want your ad to be seen by the largest number of people in your target audience, then go with the “Reach” option.
Traffic
This is the best objective to choose if your goal is to increase the number of click-throughs to your website or online store. You achieve this by using persuasive call-to-action buttons.
App Installs
If you have an app and want to increase the number of installs, then select this objectives option.
Engagement
Increasing your engagement levels is always a good thing to do on social media, so choose this objectives option if you want more comments, likes and shares, or you want users to show up for a specific event.
Video
If you want to increase the number of views to your videos, then this is the best objectives option. You can use videos to put out brand messages or showcase your products. Do this in an inspiring and creative way, and you will get great reach and high levels of engagement.
Conversions
This is the objective’s option to choose if you want to increase the level of conversions on your website.
First, Identity Your Audience
Once you have chosen your desired objective, you can now identify your target audience by selecting users based on their age, gender, interests, behaviors, location and more. Once you have created an audience, you can save it for use with other ad campaigns.
This is a very important step. With 80% of the users on Instagram following a business, you want to make sure that you get this right and that your advertising message will resonate with your target audience.
Secondly, Choose The Right Ad Type
Instagram offers a number of different types of advertising options:
- Boost or sponsored ad – you can extend the reach of an existing post
- Image Ad – use a single image for promotion
- Video Ad – use a video for promotion
- Stories Ad – base your ad on a story
- Carousel Ad – use multiple images in your ad
