When it comes to driving sales and engagement, Instagram dominates. In addition to having some of the most successful influencers, it also has some of the most effective campaigns. It is a stunning platform that appeals to our visual perceptions and provides small businesses with an effective means of competing.
If you are a user of Instagram, you are already aware of this. A brand of any size has the opportunity to compete in a vast digital arena through the Instagram platform, which you may not be aware of. As a result, they are able to reach a larger audience and see engagement levels that are out of this world. The purpose of this article is to examine the use of Instagram ads for the growth of small businesses.
How Does Instagram Advertising Work?
There will be more than 200 million brands on Instagram in 2022, making it one of the most popular social media platforms. Instagram is expected to reach 1.3 billion active users in recent years. Instagram takes advantage of the fact that humans process and retain images 60,000 times faster than text.
Instagram advertising involves paying the giant social media platform to post sponsored content on your behalf in order to increase brand awareness, engagement, sales, and even follower numbers. You would normally reach a smaller audience with your profile or page, but with this service, you will be able to reach a much broader audience.
Instagram Ads: The Lowdown
Instagram is an excellent platform for small businesses to be active on, with 80% of users following a business. You can provide your audience with an insight into your company’s work culture, your products’ workings, and the faces behind your brand by posting pictures and videos. However, if you are interested in attracting new leads, creating Instagram ads will be the most effective method of doing so. In addition to this, the social app offers a variety of different types of ads that can be used to meet specific objectives, so it is important to understand what options are available to you.
Instagram Advertising for Small Businesses: Why Should You Do It?
It is one of your goals as a small business owner to stay on top of your audience’s minds, which makes Instagram the perfect platform for promoting your brand. It has been reported that 81% of Instagram users use the platform to research products and services. The following are some of the reasons why 200 million businesses and more are using Instagram advertising and why you should do the same.
1. Innovation that is socially responsible
The platform offers a wide range of features, such as stories, hashtags, and marketing possibilities, such as influencer marketing and sponsored ads, which provide small businesses with the visibility they need to grow. Aside from sponsored advertisements, you can also use regular feed posts, stories, reels, and Instagram live to advertise your business organically while increasing engagement. Furthermore, you may wish to consider paying influencers with millions of followers to promote your brand and increase the number of prospects.
2. Identifying the right audience with precision
Instagram ads are a great way to reach a specific target audience group due to their powerful targeting capabilities. Your ads can be targeted by demographics, location, behaviors, interests, past customers, and people who have interacted with your brand in the past.
3. An interface that is user-friendly
In addition to the search option, the filtering options enable users to obtain precise results for their searches. In addition to this, the platform’s easy-to-use and user-friendly interface attract users.
4. Shopping on Instagram
Through Instagram shopping, you can convert prospects faster after creating your ads and using the platform to boost sales. This allows you to reduce the number of touchpoints prospects have to go through before becoming paying customers.
With Instagram shopping, brands can create a digital catalog on their page that allows users to learn more about their products and services without leaving Instagram. This eCommerce feature allows you to tag your products in your posts, reels, and stories, directing customers directly to your catalog when they click on them.
5. Organic traffic to a website
The URL of your website can be included in your Instagram bio when you create your business page. You may inadvertently gain organic traffic to your website as you engage users on the platform and your following grows (unless you choose to do so).
6. Engagement and visibility of the brand
As of recently, Instagram had reached 2 billion monthly users. This explains why Instagram’s engagement levels are four times greater than those of Facebook. For business owners, this means a large and diverse market to market your products and services to as well as better brand recognition and engagement.
7. Gain a competitive advantage
Since the platform has a large user base and an increased level of engagement, running ads helps you reach the eyes that are likely to be interested in your products and services. The increased traffic can boost sales of high-priority products and services by sending more traffic to those pages.
What You Need to Consider About Instagram Ads
In order to market your brand effectively on Instagram, there are a few rules to follow. You can run a successful advertisement by following these seven tips:
- Make sure your content is high-quality and your visuals are clear.
- CTA buttons should be included.
- The text should be kept to a minimum. Let the pictures speak for themselves.
- Dimensions and orientation should be considered.
- You should use short, to-the-point captions.
- Use hashtags effectively and appropriately.
- Branding should always be included.
Instagram Ads: How to Create Them
It is possible to promote your profile posts through Instagram, but you will need to create your Instagram ads in the Facebook Ads Manager platform. A quick Instagram ad can be developed and customized by following these steps:
- Click “Create” and select “Guided Creation” in Facebook Ads Manager.
- Decide what your ad objective will be (see above).
- Create an ad account and name your campaigns.
- Please review the details and click on the continue button.
- Decide who you want to reach.
- Choose “Edit Placements” under “Placements” and select Instagram as the placement type.
- Plan your budget and schedule your advertisement.
In the case of a lifetime budget, you have the option of setting a limit. As a result, your ads will never exceed a certain amount.
Set Up a Business Account
Instagram allows you to choose whether your account will be a personal account or a business account when you sign up for the service. Using the latter is ideal for business because it allows you to view analytics, connect your account with your Facebook page, run paid advertisements, and allow followers to contact you more easily. It is crucial to establish your brand presence by creating a separate business account which will enable you to strategize and implement many of our Instagram marketing tips for small businesses.
Conclusion
Last but not least, remember to have fun! There can be a lot of work involved when using Instagram to market your small business, but that does not mean you should not enjoy yourself while doing so! Try changing up your schedule if you are no longer enjoying posting about your small business on Instagram. You can still post consistently but less frequently. You might want to consider hiring someone to handle some of the social media marketing tasks so that you can focus on the Instagram marketing strategies that you are familiar with.
