Instagram has quickly become a giant in the social media world. With Facebook’s recent acquisition (of Instagram), the platform is continuously looking to innovate and add more elements to further advance the user-friendly experience as well as reaching the most possible users. Instagram sought out to improve upon this notion by implementing advertisements into user’s photo feeds. Through purchasing your own as well as seeing other groups’ advertisements, Instagram has taken the next step toward integrating business and social as one. In this post, we’ll guide you through Instagram’s interface and how it helps you integrate social media advertising into your business’ strategy—then go through how you can use Instagram advertising to its full potential.

Using the same tools as Facebook advertising allows users to swiftly navigate through and manage their campaigns, as well as set up and run new advertisements. Here are more steps for getting started:

Create a Business Page and Profile

After making sure you have an active Facebook Page, Instagram allows you to create a free Business Page. This enables your crowd to clearly and easily identify your group or business and your industry.

Set Up Ad

Instagram makes setting up your ad campaigns effortless—especially if you have previous experience building Facebook campaigns. Simply select your ad objective, target audience and ad format. You also have the option to change your settings at any time during your campaign through Instagram’s ‘Ad Manager’.

Determine Budget

Select how long your ads will run for as well as setting a budget you are comfortable spending. You should think about budget allocation as thoughtfully as you think about your audience. Spend too little and you may not get the exposure you’re looking for. Spend too much and your intended audience may get sick of your advertising, and thus, sick of your brand. 

Publish

You can smash the ‘Publish’ button at this step! Once your ads are approved and ready to run, you will receive a notification your post is live – then watch your user interaction grow. Note: one thing that may hinder your ad’s performance is the text-to-image ratio on your ad. While your ad may be approved, if the text on your image is over 20%, your ad’s reach could be negatively impacted. You can use this free tool to check! 

Four Ways to Promote Your Message

The advertisement feature allows for a number of different displays within the app.

Photo Ads

Photo Advertisements are similar to the standard user post you would see on your Instagram feed but feature bold text and a linear format to stand out. They allow advertisers to convey their message through the clean and simple presentation that Instagram has never wavered from. This option allows for photos to be posted as a 1080×1080 square format.

Video Ads

The video option of advertising on Instagram is specialized for longer messages as well as multiple displays that cannot be shown properly with a photo ad. The same visually immersive quality is present, but Instagram’s Video Ads allow for sight, sound, and motion to further intrigue your crowd—at Marketing Supply Co., we’ve seen a distinct increase in engagements with video ads. As a recent update, Instagram now allows 60 second long posts if you have a lot of information but don’t want multiple posts or advertisements. Keep in mind that the average attention span of a user is under 10 seconds. Video posts are available for both square and landscape posting.

Carousel Ads

Something relatively new to social media itself as well as social media advertising, Carousel Ads combine the previous two features. Acting almost as a digital photo album, selecting Carousel type advertisements allows users to swipe through your content (whether they be additional photos or videos), without navigating to a supplemental page or profile. The carousel ad format demands that all of your media be the same size. 

Stories Ads

Much like Snapchat’s famous ‘Story’ feature, Instagram implemented a similar attribute while also allowing advertisements to be placed on users ‘Stories’. You can complement your feed content with your group’s Story, resulting in more exposure and consumer interaction. Stories Ads are used by over 300 million users daily, while one-third of the most viewed stories come from businesses and one-fifth of stories getting a direct message from a viewer (or potential customer). Runnings ads through Stories helps advertisers further immerse themselves into their audiences’ Instagram experience.