Instagram is a popular mobile social media application whose content is entirely based on pictures and videos. In 2015 Instagram registered more active users than Twitter. As of now, Instagram has 300 million active monthly users and these users share an average of 70 million photos per day.

The surge in Instagram usage has prompted the social networking website to open its very own self-service ad platform available for brands to use to market their products and services. Users are able to create and add their own advertisements, let’s a closer look at how it works…

How does the ad platform work?

Users can use either ad creation, Power Editor or Facebook’s own Ads API to create the ad. Users can only create an ad if they have their own Facebook page as the two are linked. There are three types of advertisements options available to a user: image, video and carousel. Videos can only be a maximum of 30 seconds, a carousel allows a user to swipe through multiple images.

To get started is quite easy, you pick a campaign objective, which could be to either boost your post, promote your Facebook page or get people to claim an offer. In totality there are about 9 different objectives to choose from. Thereafter, you choose your target audience, budget and scheduling and finally the format of the advert.

Of course, to create the actual advert, you’ll need the help of creative minds to ensure that it captures your audience’s attention, is attractive and is scheduled to appear at optimum times. Book your free marketing consultation for more information on how to get started on your Instagram ad campaign.

Is it really worth it?

Although Instagram’s new ad platform sounds really good, you may be wondering if there’s a catch or whether it is really worth it. We think yes! And here’s why…

Call to action buttons

A call to action (CTA) button is a prompt for a prospective customer to do something after they have seen your amazing advert. The CTA may be to visit your website, book a free trial/order a free sample, register and/or sign up to something or even to make a purchase.

Previously, CTA’s were a pain for advertisers on Instagram. The reason being they could not place the CTA on the actual advertisement. Instead, customers would be directed to a link on the advertiser’s bio on their profile page. As you can imagine this is not ideal, although you may get a whole lot of likes and comments on your posts, these would not converted into active engagements.

Fortunately, this has been changed with Instagram’s ad platform. Brands can now place their CTA on the actual post and thus now have a platform where they’re able to actively monitor engagement- beyond just likes, comments and follows. Furthermore, you’re able to place direct links to app installs.

Engagement = Success

If your ads on Instagram have a high click through rate, this tells the platform that users are quite interested in what you have to say. As a result, the ad will be shown more frequently, creating a snowball like effect. This is the same model that is followed by Facebook.

Targeted advertising

Organisations are able to get very specific with who they want their adverts to go in front of. You can not only determine your audience by age, location and gender but also their interests, who they follow and their connections. Their custom ad feature lets you import data that you may have such as existing customer email addresses to target and further strengthen your relationship with them. This is powered by Facebook, so you can use data from their too (Facebook own Instagram).

Why not have a go?

We understand that budgets are tight for an SME or for somebody trying to promote their personal brand. However, users are two and a half times more likely to click an ad on Instagram than on any other social media website.

It does not cost and an arm and leg and presents a really great opportunity to enhance your brand image and get your message out there delivered specifically to your audience.