As part of your social media strategy for 2022, you’re likely to focus some of your efforts on Instagram and it’s a minefield – what works for one business or brand may not work for the other. You need to learn how to get more Instagram views and it might take time to find out what best Instagram promotion ideas work for you. You also might find what didn’t work 6 months ago, could work really well now.  Of course, getting creative and finding innovative ideas for Instagram promotion isn’t always easy and every now and then, you might hit a brick wall.  Don’t worry, it happens to the biggest creatives!  You just need to take a little time out and revisit the question in a few days.  Or you could take advantage of our guide for Instagram promotion ideas to see if there’s anything you could take inspiration from, perhaps even buy real, active Instagram followers?

First things first though, it’s always good to list down previous Instagram promotion ideas that worked for you.  For example, perhaps that Thanksgiving holiday discount worked a treat and you gained lots of interest as well as web conversions?  Or maybe the Instagram Live worked well when you hosted a live Q&A session?  It could be that competition you ran in the run up to Christmas was a hit and you gained an extra 500 followers in just over a week!  Or maybe you ran a sponsored post, and you got an inordinate number of hits. Have you ever thought of whether you could buy cheap Instagram likes – maybe it’s an avenue to explore? Rank all the promotional activity that worked well for your business in order of success.  You should also list out what didn’t work and assess why because there might be reasons attached.

Next, list out the successful promotions that you want to run again, but obviously with a difference.  A new competition, a different discount code, a Live Story to highlight your new collection etc.

 

How Instagram Promotions Work

Once you know what you’re going to do again, it’s time to look at new Instagram promotion ideas but before we move on, let’s touch on how Instagram promotions work as this will help with choosing innovative ideas.

As you’re no doubt aware, the object of Instagram promotion is to convert your content, whether that’s a Story, regular post, or turning a video into a sponsored post to increase your outreach and grow your Instagram followers.  Promotions are different to ads, they perhaps give a post another life, maybe it’s already been viewed and performed well naturally, when you promote it, you get even more engagement.  Adverts are different in that they normally consist of new content and they’re a part of a bigger campaign, click here for more: https://business.instagram.com/advertising?locale=en_GB.

 

Reach a Larger Audience

Instagram promotions are designed to reach a larger audience and increase brand awareness or to convert.  However, you will always be targeting your audience and have a message to share.

Ads and sponsored promotions show up the same way on the Instagram network, but they will be marked with the word “sponsored” so a user knows it’s a sponsored post.

 

What are Your Goals?

For successful Instagram promotion, there are four key goals you should keep in mind as follows:

• To drive more engagement.
• To increase your profile visits.
• To get more direct messages.
• To move people to your website.

Each goal should determine what your user does after they’ve viewed your post and used the Call To Action (CTA).  The first three are Instagram-based, so your user won’t move off of the platform but the fourth will take people to your website and hopefully you’ll convert to more sales.  Always understand your goals.

 

Running an Instagram Promotion

First things first.  If you don’t have an Instagram business account, then you won’t be able to run a promotion.  So switch over if you don’t yet have an Instagram business account (you can do this by accessing settings on the account menu.  Here are the steps to creating an Instagram promotion:

• Choose the post you wish to promote and click on the Promote switch.
• If it’s a Story or a Highlights, select your desired post from your archive and choose “Boost.”
• Next, choose a goal, such as “More Website Visits,” then you’ll need to type in the destination and add your Call To Action, such as Shop Now, Watch More, Learn More etc, from the available options.
• Next you have to define your audience and Instagram can do this for you if you select “Automatic.” They will choose users who match your current followers and demographics.  Or you could “Create Your Own” audience and filter it by location, gender, age etc.
• Then you’ll need to set a daily budget and the length of your promotion. Budget ranges from just $1 to $1,000 and your promotion can last a day or up to 30 days. We’d say start with around $5 to evaluate the market.
• Now you can review all of the above and finally click on “Create Promotion.”

Your Instagram promotion will now appear on your users’ feeds, Stories and in the Explore page no matter where you originally published it.  It won’t show up immediately as it has to go through Instagram’s approval process which takes approximately 24 hours.

 

Things to Consider for Performance – Instagram Promotion

Here are a few tips for creating your Instagram promotion to make sure it delivers superior performance.

• Use Your Best Performing Content

Investigate your top performing content and use these as they’ve already performed well for you so you should get even better performance.  Resist the temptation to boost poor-performing content, you may as well spend your money where you know you’ll do well!

• Check Your Landing Page

If you’re moving people over to your landing page it must be user-friendly and display properly on a mobile.  If not, your users will soon get tired of slow or difficult to navigate site so ask yourself if your website is easy to use on a smart device, particularly a mobile phone.

• Know Your Goals

You absolutely need to understand what you want to achieve with every Instagram promotion that you activate otherwise there’s no point!  If your goal is to get more profile visits, check your profile, does it look good?  Is it visually appealing?  Is your bio complete and is your contact information up-to-date?  If not, do change it up.  If you want more direct messages, why not add a question to your promotion to encourage answers from your followers.

• Buying Genuine Instagram Followers

Another way to promote your Instagram account is to buy real followers using a reputable company to boost your profile or to buy Instagram likes, it’s a great way to know how to get more views on Instagram.

 

Final Words on Instagram Promotions

The bottom line is to prepare in advance and perhaps use your social media marketing calendar to plan out your Instagram promotions.  For each promotion, define your goals and make sure that the content you post helps you to meet those goals.  Gain insights on all of your sponsored posts to see what performed well and what you can improve on going forwards.  Don’t bombard your Instagram following with promotions, mix them up with Stories, IGTV, Carousel posts and regular news feed posts, interspersed with a promotional post every couple of weeks or monthly to give your account a boost.