Why Choose Instagram For Your Business?

Do you know how many people visit Instagram each month? 1 billion. When asked “Why advertise on Instagram?” the first answer will surely be: because the customers are here! But there is also a second one. Which? That Instagram advertising works! It is estimated that paid ads on Instagram could potentially reach up to 800 million people. 

The correct answer, when it comes to Instagram, should be: why not?! This society with great potential brings with it many positive aspects. The first is that of influencers. Associating with an influencer can bring you benefits :

1. provide you with social proof;
2. add a factor of interest to your business;
3. rely on the influencer’s audience without having to choose your target.

People are often more likely to buy when they see a person they trust using the same product or service. I’m not saying that influencers are to be wholly excluded, but they also bring contraindications :

1. they are often costly;
2. arrangements must be made;
3. the target you speak to will be that of your influencer.

However, with the sponsorship on Instagram, social media wanted to increase transparency in favor of users and provide more advertising opportunities.

How To Advertise On Instagram

There are still a couple of steps to take before you can go sponsored. I’ll summarize them here briefly to give you a general idea and a clear vision of everything:

1. connect your Instagram account to your Facebook page;
2. build your advertising campaign;
3. create your ad set;
4. analyze and optimize your posts.

You can advertise posts on Instagram by clicking on the Promote button that appears directly on your content (photo or video). 

Otherwise, as I wrote in point 1, you have to link your Instagram profile to your Facebook page. This way, you will be able to use the  Facebook Business Manager. This is a more professional tool that allows you to create multiple ads at the same time. If you have a company or a business, I recommend using this second way, a little more laborious but indeed of higher quality.

So you will go to create your advertising campaigns and your ads well designed and specific to your needs. You can also build your ad hoc target audience to set up your communication in a more targeted way. When sponsoring, always remember to set your goal, budget, and the placements you want your ads to have. Study the whole strategy in a precise way to try to go without fail and increase your customers.

Otherwise, it’s like trying to aim at a target but with the blindfold on. Remember that your communication is not a hobby. You do it to boost your sales! You don’t have to be less than your competitors. Otherwise, you will always be spectators of others’ victories.

Set Your Goals

When advertising on Instagram, you can choose from several campaign goals. The possible objectives for advertising posts on Instagram are like those of advertising on Facebook.

Here are the objectives:

1. Brand awareness: this is mainly used to make your brand, product or service known;
2. Coverage: show ads to the maximum number of people;
3. Traffic: the goal, in this case, is to bring traffic to your website for an offer or to make your online portal known to more people;
4. Interaction: to be used if you want to get more likes and comments on posts, more “Likes” to the page, or responses to an event;
5. App installations: if you have an app and you want to convince users to download it immediately;
6. Video views: perfect if you have a video available and want it to be seen by as many people as possible;
7. Generation of contacts: this objective is the collection of information and communications of users to be able to contact them in the future;
8. Messages: Show people notes that allow them to get in touch with you on Messenger, WhatsApp, or Instagram Direct;
9. Conversions: this is, in general, the goal of companies and could be an excellent choice for those who own e-commerce and want to increase sales;
10. Sale of catalog products: in this case, you use a targeted audience to show the items that are present in your catalog;
11. Point of Sale Traffic: This shows the ad to people who live near a physical store and who might be interested in visiting it.

For each goal, you have to associate the right content and select your target audience. Custom audiences allow you to precisely intercept users potentially already interested in your product or service.

Select Your Target Audience

Did you find the goal for your campaign? Now you need to target it to the right audience. This is the real secret of Instagram advertising: if you don’t identify the ideal target, your campaign will be doomed. If you’re just getting started with sponsorships, you find yourself needing to select your first audience. If otherwise, you are familiar enough with the Business Manager, you find it helpful to save one or more audiences for reuse later.

Here are the items you can choose to select your audience:

1. Places: in this field, you can specify one or more countries, regions, provinces, cities, postal codes, and you can both include and exclude specific locations;
2. Age: you can select an age segment to which you want to direct your campaign, but remember that there are brackets that it is better to choose to invest your budget best;
3. Gender: choose from all, men or women;
4. Languages: you can also select the language that it is advisable to leave blank unless the language is different concerning the position of the target;
5. Detailed targeting: here, you can add demographics, interests, or behaviors beneficial to select your audience specifically;
6. Connections: You can select people connected to your page, app, or event.

The right side of the Facebook screen signals you with an arrow if your audience is specific or extensive. Maybe you may not give it too much weight, but we recommend doing it because it is an essential indicator within campaigns.

Choose Your Budget

This step can seem very challenging to you. But fear not, Facebook provides you with guidelines that you can follow. Know by now that the success of advertising campaigns is based on attempts, each time refining an aspect of your ads. Also, if you start the campaign and your budget seems poorly distributed, you can always pause or stop it.

The budget can be selected:

1. Daily
2. In total

After that, you will need to program :

1. Only the start date
2. Start date and an end date

To check the most excellent coverage hours, you can use the Insights collected from your Instagram account. If you only select the start date, you must remember that you must also stop it sooner or later! 

The trickier part of paid campaigns is optimizing for ad serving. You can choose between 3 alternatives:

1. Interaction with posts: you will show your ads to the right people to get the most out of your goal;
2. One-time daily coverage: show your ads to people only once a day;
3. Impressions: Show your ads as many times as possible.

If you’re up for it, Facebook also gives you the ability to get the most responses with the lowest cost strategy. But it is an optional choice that is best left aside if you have recently approached this sector.

Create The Ad

This is the fun part! First of all, you need to know that you can create an ad with either a new post or an existing one. After choosing the Facebook page and the Instagram page on which you want to publish, you have to select the type of format :

1. Single image: this is the most classic form of ad where you see a single impact photo;
2. Video: if you have a good video, a strategy to create greater engagement is certainly to sponsor it;
3. Carousel: if you have multiple photos that all deserve to be published, this is the right tool to slide them into the same ad;
4. Slideshow: create a looped video of up to 10 images;
5. Story: Post your ad not in the feed but directly in the stories section.

But now, we do not dwell too much on this part because we will analyze it in detail in a short time. Instead, let’s talk about a phrase that absolutely cannot be missed when you decide to advertise posts on Instagram: the analysis.

Analyze The Data

The monitoring phase is crucial. Only in this way can you know if your campaign is achieving the goal you set for yourself or not. Suppose you have used Business Manager shortly after the start of the sponsored ones. In that case, you will see the first data on the trend appear, and you will be able to understand if the target you have chosen responds to if the graphics are performing and what time has given more results. Otherwise, if you are using the application, you need to log into your profile, select the post whose Insights you want to view, and tap on “View Insights Data.”

Also Read: WHAT IS INSTAGRAM ?