Promoting Instagram posts can be an effective way to get your content seen among the 800 million people on the platform. With more people signing up on Instagram by the second, it gets tougher to stand out.
You’ve created an amazing piece of art that you want to share to your account. 5 minutes after you post no one engages with your post. After one hour only a few people like it. After 24 hours only a couple hundred like your post. You spent so much time creating the post, and you start to get a little disappointed. You hoped the post could have been seen by more people.
This is where promoting your post becomes an essential part of your Instagram growth.
What do you mean by promoting an Instagram post?
Promoting an Instagram post means you are increasing the awareness of your post to a greater audience. When you do this you will get the benefit of more people seeing your post. If your content is good enough it will increase the likes, comments, and even the amount of people following your page.
Where can I promote my post?
There are three main places where you can promote your Instagram post.
- Within the Instagram app itself.
- An internet service specializing in Instagram promotion
- Influencer on Instagram
Why should I promote my post?
Promoting your Instagram post offers many benefits. Here are the top ten reasons why promoting your Instagram post is something you should consider
- Allows you to maximize your reach
- Get more exposure on your art
- Get more engagement
- Can lead to more followers
- More engagement and followers will lead into future collaborations
- The growth in engagement and followers can lead to ways for you to get paid
- Helps build your social proof
- Allows you to be discovered by other pages with large followings
- Get on the Explore page
- Create awareness of a product/service to a market you wouldn’t normally reach
Who should be promoting Instagram posts?
You should promote your work if you want any or all the benefits listed above.
When do I promote my post?
I’d recommend you to pay attention to your analytics. If you have a business profile on Instagram then you have access to Instagram’s analytics. If you don’t have a business profile page then you can search “Instagram analytics” in the app store or Google Play store. You want to find the best days you get the most engagement and try to promote your posts on those days.
How do I promote my post
Getting your post promoted is different based off of where you go to get it promoted. I’ll dive into the three places I mentioned earlier in the article and tell how you can do it.
Promoting your posts in Instagram
- You’ll first need to convert to a Business Profile on Instagram.
- The Facebook page must have you set up as the admin. If you’re not a Page admin, reach out to to someone who is an admin on the Page, and ask to be added as an admin.
- Go to your profile.
- Tap the post you’d like to promote.
- Below the post’s image, tap Promote.
- Fill in the details of your promotion by setting things like Audience (who you want to reach), Budget (how much you want to spend) and Duration (how long you want your promotion to run). Tap Next once you’ve completed these details.
- To complete your promotion, tap Promote.
Pro: Promoting Instagram posts in Instagram can be the cheapest way to promote. It can cost as little as $3 to post and using Instagram’s promotion allows you to target your audience.
Con: To have an effective promotion, you’ll have to spend more money or have your promotion run a lengthy amount of time and by doing that you’ll easily surpass the $3. In addition to that you have to setup a business profile page and you have to research on how to create an effective post. The way your creative is setup is a huge part of your post’s success. In addition you can only promote one post at a time.
Promoting Instagram posts through a service
There are many Instagram promotion services out there. I’ll cover a promotion service with the most effortless steps to getting your post promoted and the safest. You don’t have to create an account with this promotion method, you don’t have to give your account details with this. There’s no automation or manual actions performing on your behalf. As a result, there is absolutely no risk of your account getting suspended.
Pro: Simplest way to promoting your content. It is the cheapest that yields the greatest results giving you up to quadrupled the amount of your normal engagement. In addition to that, over 30,000 monthly active users will see up to 5 of your promoted posts.
Con: Unless you want to promote to a creative audience, promoting your content with this service might not be the best for you. Currently there is no way to customize the audience you want to promote you.
Promoting Instagram posts with an influencer
Out of all the methods to promote your post, promoting your content with an influencer could be the most expensive and is definitely the one without as much guarantee in what you’ll get.
On Later’s website it states that 66% of brands pay $250 to an influencer for every post. 27% pay $250 to $1000.
The best way to find an influencer is to
- Search hashtags in your niche on Instagram.
- Look for people that have a 4% engagement or better. To determine someone’s engagement, use this engagement calculator and type in the user’s Instagram handle.
- Look at their profile to see if they promote posts (some do and some don’t list it in their bios)
- Send them a direct message
Below is a sample message you can use to direct message an influencer to inquire if they promote posts. Change all underline words to the appropriate content.
“Hey person’s name. You have some amazing content. I love the way you do X. Do you happen to promote posts on your Instagram? If you do, how much do you charge?”
As a general rule, the more Instagram followers an influencer has the more money you will spend.
Pro: Depending on the influencer you choose, your post could have the greatest chance on getting on Instagram’s explore page. The influencer’s connections will have a chance to see your post.
Con: This method is a hit or miss and is the most risky. You could get amazing engagement or you could get nothing. It doesn’t have as much of a “guarantee” as the first two methods. Most expensive way to promote.
Promoting Instagram posts is a vital way to get more exposure on your content and getting organic engagement. It will accelerate your Instagram growth and lead to financial opportunities. I covered three of the main methods you can promote your posts. There are many benefits of promoting your posts that will completely change your Instagram for the better!
