The Internet is overwhelmed with universal advice on how to do this quickly, in a few days, with one button.
That story is for the birds. It’s possible to achieve huge growth on Instagram, but it takes a steady and methodical approach. Get ready, because I’m about to give you a new, working promotion strategy right now. This guide presents a unique follower growth concept for 2021.
Instagram promotion Kaizen calendar strategy
Is this technique easy to apply?
Yes, it is. In this guide you will get clear and brief instructions on what to do in your account starting today. It will take just 10 minutes to execute the daily tasks. But you need to keep it up on a daily basis.
Does it require specialized knowledge?
I will describe all facts and tools you need for daily task fulfillment in this guide. Read it through and start your calendar promotion immediately.
How long does it take to apply the scheme?
I suggest using it for the whole year. Try to follow it for one month, and soon you'll see it is unputdownable.
How to get more followers on instagram in 2021
Marketers create new, sensational ways every single year.
In 2018 everybody was trying to promote through crazy mass following.
In 2019, we had high expectations of influencers.
What now? Competitor analysis? Cross-promotion? Content marketing? Each of these methods is workable. But why didn't any of them become an absolute solution? What is the principal obstacle to successful Instagram growing?
The volatility of promotion.
- the only key to gain following in 2021.
What do you need to do to apply a promotion strategy effectively? A tight promotion schedule. Running a day-to-day strategy will impact your growth like no other method. The promotion concept of this Guide is based on calendar frequency and implementing ten follower growth methods.
The idea of calendar promotion
The key concept requires a simple 10-minute act every day. One daily step to reach your IG goals in a few months. Just like in a Kaizen philosophy. Any global change frightens people, and radical or revolutionary ways are often unsuccessful for achieving goals because they increase this fear.
Small Kaizen steps for your Instagram promotion soften the brain's adverse reaction, stimulating both rational and creative thinking. Just get into the topic with this article and start making your Instagram profile more popular - step by step.
Research and inspire to get free instagram followers instantly
Instagram competitor research is the key to success. You're not the only player in this game, and there's always someone who does the same thing as you. And maybe, they do it much better than you. If so, you might have something to learn from them. Find something to be inspired by and adapt to your promotion strategy.
But how do you find competitors to learn a lesson from? How can you identify their strategies and tendencies? And how can you use this insight to help grow your following?
I'll tell you how to spy on your Instagram competitors to get results.
How to find and analyze competitors on Instagram
1. USE TOOLS TO FIND AND TRACK COMPETITORS
You can spy on your competitors manually in every channel of their promotion. It takes time and requires a knowledge of how to do marketing research.
Better to rely on professional tools:
- Use an Instagram Search tool to find successful competitors.
- Use Brand24 Media Monitoring tool to automate tracking of their steps to success.
This online service allows you to find anything you need on Instagram. Unlike a conventional platform search, this one can see results by category, number of followers, gender, or bio description of a profile. To find and evaluate your competitors' success and top profiles in your niche, follow these steps:
- Type the main keyword for your business in the search line.
- Choose the category of your business. Try searching the same keyword with a few different categories to find more profiles.
- Choose the range of follower numbers. Hint: Don't put too high a "from" number. Small profiles show great engagement results sometimes, so take them into account, too.
- Tap search and see what you've got.
- Open Analyze pages in new windows for those accounts you consider attractive.
Open these pages one by one and analyze these sections:
Average users activity and engagement
This shows the number of comments and likes compared to the number of posts and followers. Compare profiles by this number. Choose profiles with the best average user activity to continue your analysis.
What should you do next with all these profiles to identify their strategy and use this insight to grow your following?
Most popular post time
Note into a document the most popular time periods of their posts. Don't forget to mention the country of these profiles and their time zone. The tool shows all stats in UTC+3 time zone.
What audience do these profiles have? Are they local or worldwide? Take this into account when noting their most popular post time.
Top hashtags
This metric shows the most used hashtags under the most popular posts. Take these lists of hashtags and keep them as a treasure. Use them under your posts in your hashtag strategy.
Most commented and liked posts
This is a treasure trove for a content manager. You can find a hundred ideas for your posts here. Keep this information and consider how to benefit from it.
Look at the most popular post designs and do better. Look at how they interact with the audience and do better. See how they make contests and discounts and do better.
- Use this service to track your competitors' activity or top brands in your niche on various platforms. It is easy to use and has a 14-day free trial. On Brand24, you can spy on where your competitors are mentioned and the impact they create across the web.
How to use it:
1. CREATE A PROFILE
- Create projects for your own business, for competitors and top profiles in your niche.
- Switch on Instagram and Facebook by signing up to see mentions from these platforms.
- Analyze their web performance by watching these points:
- Look at where people tag them in IG and Facebook posts.
Think about if they paid for these, or if it is just user-generated content. Do you need to find famous people to pay for ads? Or perhaps you can ask your friends to use your products and mention your brand in their posts.
- Use the latest mentions on the web as ideas for your promotion. Look at what websites published ads for this brand. Can you do advertising with them too? How much would it cost? Contact those websites whose publications with your competitors' brands have the most significant Engagement.
2. FOLLOW YOUR COMPETITORS
Follow your competitors and top profiles from a “fake” account (not linked to your brand) on Instagram and Facebook. You need to look at their feed from a clear view and open-minded angle.
Why you need it:
Spy on how they reply to comments, what they like, and share. Use Facebook to see what ads these brands create and what targeted audience they choose:
- Go to the competitor's account.
- Tap three dots in the upper right corner.
- Go to About This Account.
- Click Active Ads.
Take one of the active ads and try to apply its concept to your brand. Get inspired by the idea, info line, design concept, color scheme, tone of voice. Turn on the promotion.
Find out the interests of the target audience your competitors used to make ads:
You can find it out through Facebook only.
- Log in to Facebook and follow your competitors' brand page.
- Scroll through your Facebook feed until you see your competitors' ads.
- Tap on three dots in the upper right corner - Tap “Why am I seeing this ad?”
Here you can find what audience interests your competitors targeted.
Save the list of interests for your next promo.
Follow your followers. See what they like, what they post, and what they comment on. It's like giving your followers a bit of status.
3. ANALYZE YOUR COMPETITORS' INSTAGRAM STORIES
You need to monitor all the activity of all your best-selling competitors and top profiles of your niche to feel the trend and always have on hand inspiring ideas for your content.
Use Stories Downloader’s automatic download feature - and you will have a library of brand stories in your profile.
- Go to the tool and sign in.
- Enter the name of the profile you want to spy on.
- Turn on the Automatic download for them.
- Now you can find all Stories in one place, and never miss a second of their content.
- Get inspired by the most exciting Stories designs, concepts, and offers. Adapt them to your brand and audience.
4. SEARCH BRANDED HASHTAGS OF YOUR COMPETITORS.
Follow their branded hashtags to see who is using and interacting with them. Track the performance of their branded hashtags through the Hashtag generator tool:
- Enter a branded hashtag in the search line.
- Click on it in search results to see the analytics for it.
Analyze the top posts and posts per day for it. Try to figure out whether it is popular or not. Think about this when you create your own branded hashtag.
Content marketing to grow instagram followers
Content is crucial. Content is king. You must be as trendy and stylish as you can to entice users to follow you.
People are prone to follow Instagram profiles that:
- Look realistic and humane.
- Have more followers.
- Have likes and comments.
- Have a well-designed or curated feed.
Master your content tools with these guides:
Stories guide
Highlights guide
Visual guide
Captions guide
Hashtag guide
Video guide
Run challenges, contests, giveaways
After you analyze your competitors’ profiles, you will notice one common thing between all of their most popular posts. The most popular posts are about challenges, giveaways, and contests. These are the nuclear weapons of IG promotion.
Want to increase engagement and grow following quickly?
There is an endless list of ideas and ways to create cool Instagram activity. You can find the newest ideas by hashtags: #competition, #competitiontime, #instagramcompetition, #contest, #sweepstakes, #giveaway, #loopgiveaway, #win
1. DEFINE AN IDEA
Find an idea for your promotion activity. Why are you doing this giveaway?
- Introduce a new product, service, model, color or size.
- Mark a holiday or celebration.
- Inform your audience about a sale you’ve created.
- Share some good niche news or upcoming events.
2. CHOOSE AN ENTRY METHOD
Explain how to enter your giveaway or contest. Outline the entry requirements. Write them as a clear 1-3 sentence statement.
Here are several popular entry methods:
- Like-to-win
- Comment-to-win
- Tag-to-win
- Follow-to win
- Photo and tag-to-win
- Video-and-tag-to-win
- Feedback-to-win
- Share-in-stories-to-win
3. CREATE A BRANDED HASHTAG
Create
Each successful company has one or two of its own brand hashtags. Brand hashtags help to attract attention to your promotional activity and create a loyal community of followers.
How to create an Instagram hashtag:
- Make a list of all tags that may relate to your brand giveaway or contest.
- Search for them on Instagram. Maybe another brand has used the words before.
- Test the tag in social media. Make sure that the combination of several words does not form newly banned words.
Checklist to create your successful branded tags
- Make it unique. It should be relevant and catchy.
- Bring out emotions. Induce positive feelings through your branded hashtags.
- Use humor. Funny hashtags tend to be remembered.
- Turn on the wordplay. This technique will make it easier to remember the tag.
- Add your branded hashtag to the bio.
Promote
- Use tags under each post before you start your giveaway.
- Add tags in sales posts and giveaways.
- Motivate users to use your tags. Give them a discount or gift for doing so.
4. OFFER A PRIZE
The critical point of every giveaway and contest is to attract followers. Your prize should suit these requirements:
- It is relevant to your business or niche.
- It is valuable for your target audience.
- You can feature the award on the main picture of the contest.
Ok, an expensive prize creates more engagement. But that doesn't mean you need to buy an iPhone and MacBook right now. Give away something that wouldn’t be too expensive. Gift certificates for your products and services, for instance.
5. PROMOTE YOUR CONTEST, GIVEAWAY OR CHALLENGE
- Announce before it starts –in your posts, Stories, videos, YouTube - everywhere.
- Create a DM mail-out to invite more participants.
- Create a LIVE while choosing a winner.
6. JOIN A BLOGGER OR GROUP GIVEAWAY
Have you ever seen a “loop” giveaway on one of your favorite blogger’s feeds? ( Loop giveaways usually have 5-30 different brands all giving away something, and they can generate many new likes and followers.) Have you been amazed by how many followers came to join their army? How happy must their partners have been with the results of the loop giveaway? Want the same?
- Find a blogger giveaway post on Instagram search. Find one you consider stylish and exciting.
- Take a screenshot of these posts and DM the blogger who held this activity: “Hello! Cool giveaway! Tell me, who was/is the host , please? I’m looking to try a loop giveaway too.”
- Ask around 20 bloggers about their giveaway and surely someone will give you the host’s contact info.
- Reach out to them via IG or email to get included in the next one..
Manual Instagram promotion: how to increase Instagram followers by hand
If you've already prepared your profile content for being viewed and loved by millions of followers, this is a time to invite people to follow you.
You can do it both manually and automatically. My advice is to start with a manual promotion, especially if your profile is new to IG.
Even though the automatic promotion tool is made so savvy that it is indistinguishable from human actions, it is better to start your promotion by hand. Manual promotion requires time for analyzing and careful thought from you. Let's leave all the following, liking, and story views of your target followers for a smart automated promotion tool. Hit the ground running now. How can you promote IG manually?
1. Create an audience portrait
The first thing in promotion strategy is to understand your audience. You need to get into the interests and hobbies of your future followers to create ideal content and the right marketing scenario.
Only after this step will you get what specific hashtags you need in order to be found by your potential followers. Get clear on who you are trying to attract in your target audience and who you are trying to reach with your hashtag strategy.
To find relevant hashtags, first create a customer avatar for your business:
(To help understand the process, I'll research an Instagram photographer profile along with you.)
Start with a product you're trying to sell.
Example: I'm a maternity photographer from Washington. I can make family photos, maternity photos, beautiful portraits, and exciting photo journals about any family event. My clients can be from any city within my state, as I'm ready to travel for work.
#babyphotographerwashington is a suitable hashtag, but it is not searchable, and nobody follows it. Let's type it in a hashtag generator to find suitable words for this point:
Picture an actual person who is interested in your product
(It can be a past customer or a customer of your competitor.)
So, I will find hashtags that are searched by this kind of audience. As Mary is interested in style and beauty while in the maternity period, I should try to show it on my page:
#maternityoutfit
And check through the hashtag generator for possible variations.
2. Become a part of the community
The automatic promotion tool can do everything to promote you inside IG. Well, almost everything.
You should do a bunch of thinking about your brand and community, and that requires delving into certain actions by hand. No artificial intelligence or automated service can read your thoughts and establish contact between your brand and your target community.
These actions are:
- React to the latest publications and Stories on your topic.
- Participate in popular conversations around your topic.
- Find influencers’ posts with lots of comments and participate in a friendly tone.
- Partner and cross-promote.
3. React to the latest publications on your topic
What can be more engaging than direct contact with your target followers? You should try this immediately and count how many followers will come to your profile after a day of such activity.
To find a feed to react to, you need to create a list of your target hashtags and competitors. Take an inventory of competitors from the previous chapter (from your competitor spying) and generate hashtags in Hashtag generator (by entering your main keyword in the search bar).
- Go to your competitor's profile and stalk their latest publications.
- Tap likes and tap comments on the latest posts. Go to the profiles of their authors.
- React to stories of these profiles. No more than 50-100 reactions a day.
- Comment on their last posts. No more than 60 comments an hour.
Try to stay humane and straightforward while doing this. Get into their posts and stories with all your heart and comment as if you were friends.
4. Participate in popular conversations around your topic
This action can bring lots of followers to your account. All you need is to find popular conversations that are somehow connected with your topic and join in by commenting on posts. How you do it:
- Go to Instagram and type a word that is related to your product in the search line.
- Tap on Tags section and choose any hashtag.
- Instagram will show you top posts for this hashtag. Find a post with lots of comments.
- Check if this post is fresh enough to continue the conversation. Better to choose today's posts.
- Type your comment in the discussion or reply to someone's comment. Try to be as friendly as possible. Write full and detailed feedback.
- In this list of popular posts, find influencers, ones with lots of comments. Pay special attention to these posts. Participate in conversations under them. Ask friendly questions, even if the post about your competitor's product. Ask for an opinion, and share yours.
5. Partner and cross-promote
Haven't you tapped a mentioned brand profile in other brands' profiles? Just out of curiosity? That was probably a cross-promotion. You need to master this way of follower growth. Finding a brand that would love to cross-promote with you is simple. Think about your customer portrait that you've created. Identify what other spheres of life can be relevant for this person.
Example of cross-promotions:
Sneaker brand & barbershop
It can be a post where a barbershop client shows his new hairstyle, sitting in the barber chair, while wearing bright sneakers.
Jewelry brand & manicure salon
Easy to create a post showing quality manicure and fashionable rings and bracelets at the same time.
Dress shop & restaurant
An excellent reason for a post is to show the dress in a suitable place, and vice versa - to show the mood of the restaurant through the style of its clientele. Choose the profile you consider attractive for a cross-promotion.
Answer the questions:
- Would this brand profile be able to sell the same product or service as yours?
(The answer must be "No" if you want to cross-promote.)
- Does your target audience have the same level of income, lifestyle, and interests as this brand’s followers? (Should be a strong "Yes.")
- Wouldn't this cross-promotion harm your brand’s reputation?
(Of course, it should not. Be careful while seeking a brand to cross-promote. Look through its feedback and evaluate the quality of the service or the product. Does it match your level of quality?)
Use a template of direct message or email offer to cross-promote:
For example:
Hi [name], let's cross-promote!
I enjoy your [relevant content] and am impressed by how well you've done with [their company name].
I'm reaching out to you because I have a product that I think your audience would appreciate. And my audience will love your product.
Let's make a post [contents and idea].
Don't you think our followers will love it?
Please let me know if you are interested.
Thanks for your time,
[Your name]
Automated Instagram Promotion without buying instagram followers
Why should you try an automatic promotion tool?
Who can like up to 500 posts in one day? With just a 20-second delay after each like, it would take 4 hours a day! No one can do it. But a special instrument can. The Inflact Instagram Bot.
It will:
- Automate liking, following, and unfollowing.
- Do everything for you just like a human (Instagram won’t suspect you’re using an automated tool)
- Draw attention to your profile by automated watching of thousands of ordinary people’s Stories: your target audience.
- Create a blacklist of profiles if you want the tool to pass over their profiles.
How does this automatic tool work?
Spend just 7 minutes to sign up for the tool and set up your first promotion.
Follow 3 simple steps:
- Sign up and add your account
Enter your email or link your account to a social network to create a new account. Connect your Instagram profile(s) to our service.
- Set up your new campaign
Adjust your activities: target your audience, set daily limits, enable filters.
- Track and enjoy the results
Now let the tool run your account promotion and track down the results by using sophisticated analytics tools on the dashboard. Here you can see detailed statistics for all actions you've done. Look at easily understandable data curves.
Influencer marketing to get followers on instagram
No successful Instagram business can live without influencer marketing in 2021. These fantastic people with a broad and devoted following are ready to tell people about your product or service and make it best-selling. Let's dive into the Influencer marketing strategy on this step.
Your goal of influencer marketing
Before we start choosing your perfect Influencer army, let's set our sights on your marketing goals for doing this.
#1 BRAND AWARENESS
If you want to create all around common talk about your brand, hire macro-influencers. They normally have 200K+ followers, and this is your chance to widen your popularity in a few days.
#2 CONVERSIONS
Here you need to check influencers' engagement rates. The formula of Influencer engagement is:
Add up all engagements on the latest post (likes, comments, clicks, shares) and divide it by the number of followers. Then multiply this number by 100.
The typical Influencer engagement rate is 2%.
This number matters much more than a follower count if you need conversions. Middle-influencers with 25K to 200K followers show the best results in this contest.
#3 NICHE AUDIENCE
For a specific niche, find Influencers with a particular community following them. They mostly have under 25K followers.
Finding your Influencers
Choosing the right person for advertising your products is a vital thing in this strategy. No one is asking you to do it manually. Use an Instagram search and profile analyzer tool. Firstly, decide on what categories of interest you can use to promote your product. Don't go too far away from your sphere, but also don't be too limited. Choose your promotion goal and make up your mind about what type of influencer you prefer.
Open Instagram search.
- Type in your business keywords, choose a category, gender, and the follower count.
- Choose 5-10 Influencers from the list.
- Click "Analyze" to see all metrics for each account.
Key points to analyze:
- Engagement
This percentage must be at least 2%. This number is a minimum that shows regular activity of followers to engage with.
- Most commented and most liked posts
Inspect these posts carefully to understand what type of content you would suggest with your product placement. This point is essential to determine which angle of presenting your business can be most interesting among the followers of this influencer.
Choosing a type of influencer ad
Don't forget that you can choose what type of ads you want to get from influencers. Here is a list of options and advice for each:
- Photo or a Slideshow
It is the most popular way to promote through blogger feed. Simply place your product on the blogger's body, in their hand, on a table, in a room, or anywhere you can. Or put your blogger into your shop, cafe, gym, etc. Photos are a profitable and successful type of ad that bring you sales the whole time they stay in the Influencer’s feed.
- Video or IGTV
Making a clip about your product or service is a great idea. But it always costs more than a photo and requires a fresh concept to make it engaging and selling. If your product or service needs a video to reveal all its potential and benefits for a customer - spare no effort or money for this.
- Story
It is probably one of the most uncomplicated and cheap options on the influencer market. The only way to continue to reap the fruits of this type of ads after 24 hours is to agree with the influencer that they’ll place it in the Highlights section on their page.
- Giveaway
This type of advertising is short-term and successful, as this is a profitable deal both for the influencer and the brand. Offer your influencer the chance to give away goods, certificates for services, or money for their following. Partner with other brands to create a massive gift base in a “loop” giveaway and excite many users to participate.
- Ambassadorship
Ask an influencer to become your brand ambassador. This strategy is long-term, and this is a new level of marketing. It requires a steady approach and concept of promotion. The minimum basis of the ambassadorship scheme: the influencer must show love for your product and keep sharing content about your product within an agreed period.
How much do Instagram influencers cost?
These are approximate numbers for influencer marketing in 2021:
- 25-50K followers - $800-$1500
- 50–100K followers - $1500-$2000
- 100-250K followers - $2000-$6000
- 250K–1M followers - $6000-$10.000
- 1M+ followers - $10.000+
Use an Instagram Earnings Calculator to calculate the approximate cost of working with any public figure on Instagram.
Contact and agreement with influencers
Try to contact a chosen influencer directly, bypassing their agency or manager. Use all possible ways - direct messages, email, messengers. But the one thing that is common for all these methods is a particular formulated offer to collaborate. Here is a template of the deal offer to the influencer:
(Introduction)
First of all, I hope you’re having a great day.
We want to collaborate with you. I just spoke with my team. We would like to place ads of our (product, service, brand, etc.) in your (feed, stories, videos, etc.).
(Your brand name, product or service) is a (what is a goal or sphere of your business).
(Offer)
We offer you (coupon code for the purchase, a free product, a cash reward) for this collaboration.
If you're ready to partner with us, you will receive a personal code of (10%, 20%, etc. off) to share with your followers or friends.
You will also be reposted on our official Instagram page, where more than (how many followers) people follow us!
You will also have the possibility of putting in your Instagram biography that you are "(your brand) Ambassador."
How much would such a collaboration cost for us?
We are looking forward to having you on the (your brand) team.
(your name)
Social Manager & Collaborations at (your brand)
www.(your website).com
DM promotion to get more Instagram followers
Instagram’s direct messages feature has more than 375 million monthly users. People love DM, and people read DM. This DM service allows you to communicate with your potential customers directly without any barrier.
This is a one-to-one conversation and a powerful tool for promotion. You should use this tool for your advertising in 2021. But keep your honor here - don't even try to send delusional and obsessive messages to your target followers. Moreover, I advise you to use Spintax generator to make your DM texts unique and non-repeating.
People hate spammy messages, and you'd definitely get banned for sending tons of identical messages. Every target user counts! With this automated Direct Message promotion tool you can promote your profile and make sales directly through messages.
3 easy steps to start gaining followers through automated DMs:
- Set auto-reply
The tool offers a feature where you can set up an auto-reply so that you answer automatically to up to hundreds of different messages from your subscribers.
Just click the Auto-replies section and add a new auto-reply. Enter a keyword that your user may use in a message to you — for instance, “price, size, delivery, shipping,” etc. Add a message and image, which they will receive after using a keyword in their message.
Fully customizable replies are sent when a message contains a keyword working as a trigger. The responses are immediate.
Here is an example of an auto-reply dialog:
- Hey! I'm looking for an inexpensive bike for summer rides. I think I need some help.
- Okay, if you need a consultation, please text "specialist.” If you want to see all products, type "catalog."
- Specialist
- Hello! My name is Alice. Can you tell me how often you plan to ride? What are the essential features for you? I will offer you the best models.
- I want to ride every day. I need a model with a basket.
- (Customer manager response)
- Welcoming message
Begin with a feature that allows every new follower to get a welcome message. This can help them to engage with your profile twice as fast.
All you need to do now is to create a template for messages. The creation should follow certain rules.
Consider some of them:
- Come up with an interesting title. The title should be simple, contain figures or facts if possible, and attract the attention of the user.
- Write clearly and understandably. Try to use short sentences without unnecessary words and formulate your thoughts.
- Get right to the point. If you start the text with a long introduction, few people will come to the beneficial information.
- Provide factual information. “Five times faster,” “three times more accurate,” “ten kilograms of meat per hour” — all this specific information inspires confidence and attracts the attention of the recipient of direct mailing.
- Accompany the text with a link. After reading the text of the message, the user is likely to want to know more. So leave the link so that they could easily find the information that interests them.
Here you can find 30 templates for DM by niche.
Ready to keep the potential audience in the loop for hot deals, speed up and simplify lead-generation?
- Now create a mail out
Try these ideas:
- New product launch
Announce your news in a friendly manner. Don't try to make a sale right now, just show what you've got. Use high-quality images.
- A sale or other event invitation
Let them know if you’re doing something exciting.
- Breaking news
Send them important industry news that is truly relevant to your product and important enough.
- Holiday wishes
Whether you wish them a happy New Year or send a Valentine's Day postcard - a simple greeting makes your communication much warmer.
- Master direct messaging
Go to the Direct Messaging section. Here you can find CRM features:
- Message sorting
- Search by words
- Labels for each thread
Now you can find everything you need and work with past clients again, sending them updates they may be interested in.
Instagram ads to get followers
This part of your promotion strategy is crucial. Everybody uses it. Not everybody succeeds in it.
Read this full Instagram AD guide. Here you’ll get Instagram ads training: such as how to succeed with a $5/day budget. Plus, get lots of killer and simple hacks to save money on ads.
Here is a quick 3-step process for a simple follower-gaining ad:
- #1 Choose a placement
- #2 Choose an audience
- #3 Set up your ads
#1 CHOOSE AN AD TYPE
There are six types of ads on Instagram for 2021. Not each of them is suitable for your content. Choose wisely, according to these characteristics:
Type / Characteristic |
Reasons to use |
Goals |
Stats |
Stories |
Full-screen experience without any distractions. Get into a highly personal space. The cheapest placement. |
They’re great for running high-impact but time-limited offers. |
One third of stories are made by businesses. |
Photos |
Easy to produce and set up the audience. It can be a landscape format. |
Lead generation campaigns, competitions, events, and links. |
Single image ads drive 20% more engagement than other types of feed ads. |
Videos |
Show your product or service in action. |
Lead generation campaigns, competitions, events, and links. |
Show your main point as fast as you can. 60% of viewers abandon video ads within a few seconds. Videos can triple the engagement of photos. |
Carousel ads |
Showcase 3-5 photos or videos. Win multiple chances to get your viewer interested. |
Lead generation campaigns. |
Your carousel should be magically interesting. In 2021 this type of ad still loses 20% of engagement compared with single image ads. |
Collection ads |
Contain multiple images or videos, but directly shoppable. |
Sale generation campaigns. |
Researchers mention the 30% reduced reach for this type of ad. |
Explore ads |
The Explore section is a powerful marketing tool. |
Reaching out to new audiences. |
Half of all Instagram users surf the Explore section daily. |
#2 CHOOSE AN AUDIENCE
The FB built-in targeting is extensive and straightforward for your needs. All you need to do is to create your potential customer portrait.
Choose everything you've found out: Location, Age, Gender, Language, Relationship, Education, Work, Financial Status, Home, Ethnic Affinity, Generation, Parents, Interests, Behaviors, Connections.
Or try to create a custom audience. These people have already interacted with your profile.
If you choose a look-alike audience, new people whose interests are similar to your audience will get your ads.
Facebook provides an "audience definition gauge" so that you can feel how narrow or broad your audience is and the estimated reach number of your ad. Experiment with your audience until it gets "fairly broad."
A/B testing of Facebook ad audiences
A/B testing allows you to divide audiences evenly and test two versions of your ad so that you can compare their statistics. Random testing can lead to the intersection of audiences. Find right on Facebook a few steps to make A/B testing.
#3 SET UP YOUR ADS IN 7 STEPS
- Go to the Facebook Ads Manager to create an account.
- Choose a Quick Creation campaign and name your campaign.
- Choose if you want to A/B test or optimize your budget. Set the goal as “Traffic” and click “Continue.”
- Then set up your perfect audience.
- Go to Ads Manager.
- Create Audience.
- Use your Facebook sources: Instagram business profile.
- Tap to create a custom audience.
- Create look-alike audience.
- Add several countries. Don’t forget to add English speaking countries like India and Pakistan, as the click of their residents is much cheaper than US users’ clicks, for example.
- Go back to Ads Manager and click to Edit Ad sets of your new campaign. Scroll the menu and choose from custom audiences.
- Add locations that are suitable for your business.
- Choose Instagram as a platform: Feed and Stories.
- Click on the last direction in the upper place of the page.
- Paste the link to your Instagram account in the website window.
- Add your media. Make sure this video, photo or animation tells who you are, how you can help and why they need to follow your account.
Marketing insights to analyze how to better get followers for Instagram
Nobody can market successfully without analysis and testing. Did you know that these are two pillars of a profitable promotion strategy? But this step is often missing—big mistake.
Account metrics analysis in 10 screenshots
For everybody, who needs a simple way of profile metrics analysis, we created a Weekly IG report template. Now you can analyze your profile with just ten screenshots. You need to fill your report with screenshots every seven days. After a month of this, you will get a full vision of what's going on in your business profile.
How to use it properly.
- Download reports
- Make screenshots of this information once a week:
#1 INSIGHTS HOMEPAGE FOR INSTAGRAM AD TARGETING
Target the demographics of your current audience. Screenshot demographics in the Followers section: gender, age group, and location (you need at least 100 followers to see this data). Tap More to see Gender, Age range, Top locations, Online times.
#2 INSIGHTS HOMEPAGE FOR RECOGNITION OF THE BEST TIME TO POST
Screenshot online times when your followers are most active on the network. This info will help you to create a posting schedule that best reflects when your audience is online.
#3 INSIGHTS HOMEPAGE FOR FINDING OUT WHAT CONTENT WORKS
Tap See More to view new posts. Choose from these filters: Content-type, Measurement, Time. Make three screenshots for most Engaged, Reached, and Saved content within last month. Identify successful posts to see what your audience prefers to see. You might discover, for example, your audience engages more with videos of products than carousel posts.
#4 BEST POST INSIGHTS FOR FINDING OUT WHY CONTENT WORKS
Take these three posts from the previous step and work with their Post insights—screenshot the Discovery section for each of them. Here you will see where the activity came from.
#5 INSIGHTS HOMEPAGE STORIES FOR FINDING OUT WHAT CONTENT WORKS BEST
Access stories data from the Insights homepage to see all of your stories' posts for the past two weeks. Screenshot stories with the most significant impressions and reach amount - these are the best ideas.
Open up IG stories. Upload your report pages. Put screenshots on proper places within pages. Save the story on your phone. Voila! Now you have a portrait of your Insights.
Use this report to create content for the next week or set up a new ad campaign.