Jun 3, 2021

What does promote mean on Instagram?

Instagram has grown in popularity since it launched in 2010, with more users than before and algorithms constantly changing, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to reach people with organic posts. Instagram realises this and offers a promoting feature.

What does promote mean on Instagram?

Simply, pay to have your post seen by a larger audience. This can be done straight on the app, by clicking on ‘Promotions’ on your business profile or if you have created the post, bottom right there’s a button. 

Steps to creating a promotion on Instagram?

1. Set a goal

Pick what you want to achieve from your promotion: more profile visits, more website visits or more messages. 

2. Define your audience

You have a choice between ‘Automatic’ or ‘Create your own’, an automatic audience means Instagram will target people similar to your followers. If you choose to create your own, select your locations, interests, age and gender.  

3. Choose your budget and duration

Decide on how much money you want to put behind your promotion and how long you want it to go on. Once selected, you’ll be able to see a number of an estimated reach. 

Find a preview of your promotion at the last stage, see what it will look like on Stories, Feeds or the Explore page. After that, click ‘Create Promotion’. 

Easy to do right? It is like boosting a post on Facebook but with that, you will get the option to display that post on Instagram but you won’t get that option when promoting on Instagram, to display the ad on Facebook.

Why would I promote on Instagram?

If you are looking to reach a larger audience to increase your vanity metrics – followers, likes, comments, etc. – and do it quickly, then promoting a post on Instagram is your answer.

What disadvantages are there?

Creating a promotion on Instagram has restricted advertising options compared to creating a Facebook Ad on Ads Manager. 

This includes the first stage when you pick your goal, Facebook Ads has other goal option to pick from including traffic, conversion, lead generation and more. 

In regards to targeting, you can only reach one audience with your promotion. With a Facebook Ad, you can reach more with the same post. This is great if you want to compare and see which drives more engagement or where the leads are coming from. 

Hopefully, this has helped you better understand promoting on Instagram. To learn more about Facebook Ads and boosting on Facebook – read this blog. 

FinanceStream can help

Our talented marketing team can help you advertise on social media. From designing and creating your post to evaluating how it did, FinanceStream can help. 

Get in touch for a chat, email robin@financetream.co or call 0161 672 7822.

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