If you are thinking of advertising on Instagram, one of the most popular today, in this content we will tell you why it is a good idea and how to do it correctly.
Anyone with a shred of digital knowledge knows that social media is a catapult, if properly harnessed, to make themselves known.
According to the Internet MX and Digital Statistics Association, 82% of Mexicans dedicate part of their day to day to reviewing this social network . This represents a golden opportunity for brands and companies that need to get their messages to thousands or millions of people.
So that you can take advantage of it, in the following lines we will explain how valuable advertising on Instagram is and the best practices to carry it out.
Attention!
Why advertise on Instagram?
If you have been on the platform in recent months, you must have noticed that its features are constantly being renewed, all with the intention of giving everyone a more pleasant user experience.
For example, with the use of Stories, brands have been able to approach their audiences without being invasive and transmit messages in a more casual, less structured and, obviously, more appealing way for their target audience .
Also, using Facebook Ads, the Facebook ad manager that is also part of Instagram, you can count on a valuable duality, showing the advertising on the two social networks.
Other advantages are:
- Branding : boost your brand through paid campaigns and make your company known to thousands of potential customers .
- Create communities : advertising on Instagram allows you to create audiences and communities that serve as new direct communication channels between you and your audience.
- Visual impact : and with this, to attract the attention of users within the social network, with an ad located within the feed without being invasive or annoying.
Finally, advertising on Instagram is low-cost, and AdEspresso studies confirm that the average cost per click is something close to US $ 0.8.
4 best practices for advertising on Instagram
The first thing you should understand is that, although Instagram is part of Facebook, the first social network keeps characteristics apart from the second. So, if you want advertising to work properly, you must recognize the basics.
There are two means, for now, where the ads appear: in the feed and in the Stories.
In the first , the advertisements appear in the usual timeline, in which you scroll down and the photos or videos of your followers appear. In this way, the ad looks like a regular post, but with the ad tag to be recognized as such.
The second are those that are shown with the vertical format, either in video or image within the Stories. They are also indicated as advertising, but without being invasive or annoying, every 4 or 5 accounts.
So, with this already clear, it is time to talk about best practices.
Original content
This happens in almost all advertising formats or digital materials. But when we talk about advertising on Instagram, this is vital, since “generic” or stock photos are not well seen by users, since they are easy to recognize and scare off Internet users.
Using, for example, Content Marketing as part of a digital strategy to attract your audience and give them relevant materials for their tastes and interests, you can get closer to them and nurture them to gradually convert them into customers.
Likewise, when the photographs or videos are about the products or services within the company, this generates a positive impact.
For example, if your company is dedicated to manufacturing shoes and the new models are advertised through Stories, this will generate greater engagement than if stock images are used.
It is important to clarify that advertising on Instagram is not designed to function as a product catalog , that is, it does not seek to sell your items or services. On the contrary, what you seek is to create a link with the users who, eventually, can become customers.
Use of influencers
The so-called ” influencers ” are those people or accounts that have large audiences, and more than this, a great connection with a large group of users on the social network.
They are Internet personalities and, sometimes, other media that allow brands to carry their product, service or message in a massive way through advertising on Instagram.
Now, for this to be a good practice, you must be very careful when choosing the influencer , since it must have specific characteristics that are related to the type of ad you want to make.
These accounts are divided as follows according to their specialty:
- celebrities : are those who have been on the platform for a long time and have grown up with it. Businesses that are dedicated to mass consumption are ideal for this type of influencer since they also have a very varied audience.
- Macro Influencers : these usually have 10,000 to 100,000 followers and usually handle different types of public and are opinion generators.
- Micro Influencers : are those with audiences of less than 10,000 followers. And they are niche , that is, both their content and their followers belong to a specific sector.
- Nano Influencers : These have less than 1,000 followers and although it can be seen as very few users, they have a great connection with them.
Think about your target audience or your buyer persona when you have to choose one of them. What do you offer? How do you want to convey your message? What audience is relevant to your business?
Data collection and analysis
For your digital strategy and, especially, advertising on Instagram to work, you must collect all the data that is generated , order it and study it to determine if your objective can be achieved with the path you are taking or if, on the contrary, you need to adjust more to get closer to your ideal audience.
There are many tools, both paid and free, to view the metrics that are generated within your Instagram account and that will help you monitor, access reports, and view progress in your strategy.
But what should you measure? Well, next, we show you the main indicators that you should take into account for Instagram Ads:
Engagement
On Instagram, interaction is everything, since it represents the level of “engagement” that users have with your brand.
If, for example, you have an ecommerce , the main aspect related to engagement that will interest you is not the likes or comments, but the number of clicks generated to your virtual store.
On the other hand, one of the good practices to increase engagement may be to run contests, since they promote interaction and help to obtain new followers .
CPA
The cost per action is how Instagram Ads allows you to pay only when a user of the network performs a certain action. For example: click on to your web page, swipe up on Stories, impressions, among others.
Conversion value
It is the value that indicates the number of people who visited your ecommerce through an Instagram ad and made a purchase.
For example, if you obtained 100 visits to your virtual store and only 1 sale, then your conversion value will be: 1/100 = 0.01 or, what is the same, 1%.
These metrics will help you better understand what the impact of your profile is within the market and if your expectations are being met.
At the same time, collecting data will give you a much broader perspective on the type of user who is interested in your posts and advertisements on Instagram.
This will allow you to adapt the next content to this type of audience and, consequently, generate more leads and attract the buyer persona.
Segmentation
Segmentation of advertising on Instagram is one of the best practices to conquer the market this year. Due to the number of users that the network has, there are thousands of interests that can separate one account from another and, obviously, this also happens for brands.
With segmentation or hypersegmentation , the gap that exists between business profiles and its target audience can be reduced .
Therefore, there are 4 ways to limit the audience:
- geographical data,
- demographic data,
- interests,
- and behaviors.
Thanks to this you can reduce the margin of error and, automatically, increase the effectiveness rate of your campaign, generate more leads and conversions.
conclusion
Advertising on Instagram is a very powerful tool to generate new business opportunities and publicize the benefits of your brand, products or services.
Without a doubt, it is an ally for those who decide to follow the best practices and create their own audience in an organic way.
Speaking of Instagram and brands, do you want to know how to use this social network for business? Well, enter our content about Marketing strategies on Instagram and discover how to use them effectively.
