How to promote instagram? Part 3
The topic of making money on Instagram is very broad. That is why we divided it into three blocks: ” How to start making money on Instagram? Part 1, ” How to make money on Instagram? Part 2 " and "How to promote instagram? Part 3". If you missed the first two parts, we recommend that you go back and read them first.
Good promotion starts with the basics. In the first article, we analyzed in detail the basic stages of creating a selling page. We learned what positioning is and why it is important to start with it, analyzed the concept of USP, decided on the target audience, filled and designed the page so that everything was beautiful and understandable, and most importantly, it met the key Goal.
In the second part, we studied the main promotion tools through targeted advertising on Facebook. They showed working creatives that are popular in 2020, and also opened the veil of secrecy and told how Instagram algorithms work.
Now that our page is completely ready and we understand how the Instagram system works, where to look for clients and how to set up advertising campaigns. When we know what our target audience looks like, what they like and what does not cause a reaction, we can proceed to the next step.
In this article, we will learn how to promote Instagram to other scales. We are not talking about the number of subscribers, today the main struggle is for coverage. You can earn more if you know how to increase coverage thousands of times.
Reach – what is it and why increase it?
Reach is the actual number of people who have viewed your content: feed posts, stories, or ads. The more unique visitors, the wider the reach.
The main difference from impressions is that reach takes into account only the exact number of visitors, while impressions take into account the number of views. If a user has seen your post 3 times, it will be counted as 1 reach and 3 impressions. It is not hard to guess that impressions are always greater than reach.
Why is Instagram reach so important?
A couple of years ago, engagement was considered by the number of subscribers, today the indicator of subscriber engagement is reach. All algorithms are based on them. With the help of them you can promote instagram.
In addition, “extra" subscribers can only harm your statistics, dropping you down in impressions and so that the majority simply will not see your publication in the feed. Read more about instagram algorithms in this article.
Reach is useful not only for visibility on the web, but also for your own analytics. By calculating the average reach of your page, you can evaluate the performance of your post or ad.
The coverage of 15-30% of the number of all subscribers can be considered optimal. The more users interact with your account, the wider the reach, and hence the higher the sales.
Factors affecting reach on Instagram
In Instagram statistics, you can see three types of coverage: Stories, posts and the account as a whole. Coverage is influenced by factors such as:
- Comments and likes on the post.
- Bookmarking a post you like.
- Transitions to the profile from publications and advertisements.
- Repost publications and stories to your account and friends.
- Time to fix attention on a post/story.
- View Stories to the end and return to the previous one.
- Reactions and interactions with stories – answers in direct, clicks on feedback buttons.
- Expand the "More" text to see the full details.
- Scrolling in the "Carousel" of photos.
And that's not all the factors that affect coverage. To promote Instagram, it is important to understand the following: the more your followers interact with your account, the more feedback they give, the more often you will be shown in their feed.
At the same time, the better their “watchfulness”, the higher the chances of buying your product and loyalty credit to you in general. And, most importantly, people who are interested in the content or satisfied with the purchase are happy to recommend it to their friends and subscribers.
How to increase reach on Instagram?
The Instagram platform differs from other promotion platforms in that it has many ways to engage the audience, and very simple ones from the user's point of view. However, requiring a lot of attention, time and creativity on the part of account administrators. How to promote Instagram by increasing coverage?
Be interactive and proactive, even in daily posts
Let's think logically, in order to increase the reach, first you need to work out the engagement of people who already follow you. The first thing you can do is:
– Improve the quality of your posts and their regularity.
– Work on visual content, because it is what attracts attention in the first place.
– Start communicating with your audience: offer to express their opinion on a particular topic, leave a review or answer a question.
– Turn on gamification, thereby diversifying the ordinary feed, and encouraging subscribers to do simple actions “in the game”, which, in turn, will certainly increase your reach.
When you learn how to interact with your audience, conduct interactions and receive feedback, it will be easier for you to attract new subscribers to your page.
Simply put, they will fall into the "stream" of the activity that occurs on your page, seeing that so many people are interested in it.
You can use the above recommendations to promote Instagram through posts. As for the stories, one could write a whole book here. But we will try to put the main theses into a few points.
Discover the mechanics of Stories
Instagram Stories are a really powerful business promotion tool. And it should be noted that today users prefer stories to posts.
You may not post sheets of text every day, but you must have 7 stories taken daily.
For many people, viewing the story feed is a whole morning ritual. Which is not surprising, because they broadcast Life Style. They do not load the brain, and if there is a text, then it is presented more abstractly.
In addition, Instagram Stories provide many tools for getting feedback from followers, games and collaborations – in a word, interactions. And any actions with the promoted page, as we have already found out, increase coverage and help promote Instagram.
What mechanics and tools can you use in stories
Polls and voting
The easiest and most common way to get feedback from subscribers. Ask a question that offers a simple yes/no answer, it doesn't take much of the user's time, but it does the statistics for you.
Besides, who among us does not like it when someone is interested in our opinion. Compare products/photos, suggest options to choose from, or take a quiz to test your best knowledge about your product/service or just an abstract topic.
Also, a simple way to get great reach on your page. Let's say you opened a cafe or showroom, invited guests who, in turn, are happy to visit a new place and, of course, celebrate this event on their Instagram. When shooting a story, the user can mark your account or address on Instagram, record a video review.
If this is a well-known person with a large number of subscribers, then put a mark in his story, a large flow of people will come to inquire about you, and this guarantees you new subscribers and potential customers.
GIF animations
Animated images that you can add to any story, on any topic. It can be cartoon characters, celebrities or characters from TV shows expressing a certain emotion. GIFs have earned their popularity because they are great for conveying the mood of a story. Especially if you can place a media personality in your post.
And that is not all! For your brand or personal account, you can make your own original GIFs. Add it to the general instagram catalog and if the picture is really cool, then the viral effect will not keep you waiting.
AR masks
Special filters for photos and videos in Stories that add various video and audio effects to a regular image using augmented reality technology.
In 2020, Instagram became a real trend and, it can be argued, they overtook GIF animations.
Firstly, they close the main need of people who have entered the social. network is entertainment.
Secondly, they are a simple tool for engaging users, from a commercial point of view.
Thirdly, they allow you to feel like a creator (setting a certain atmosphere for the frame) and simply beautiful.
And of course, the main bonus is such a quality as free PR, again through virality. A great way to promote Instagram.
Today, with the help of Spark AR, anyone can (without special skills) make their own AR mask, people will see it on other people or find it in searches and add it to their stories. Also, such a tool can be safely used in AR games, however, for this you will have to turn to specialists.
Use these features. With just one section of stories, you can be on friendly terms with your followers and easily engage new ones.
Show your life and the life of your brand, open the entrance to the “behind the scenes” of your project, production. People like to look and be participants in other dimensions, especially being able to do it without leaving the couch.
Interested people have their own concerns and concerns – let them ask them. Suggest a solution, give a bonus. In the virtual world as well as in life. Don't expect people to turn to face you while standing with their backs to them. Learn more about selling through Instagram stories here.
It is also worth highlighting live broadcasts as a separate block. Do not forget to hold them – they gather the audience in one place at the same time, which is logical, it also affects the reach. In addition, you can invite other users to broadcast, thereby making it even more interesting.
Use geotagging and hashtags wisely
Whether or not hashtags are really necessary is still debated to this day. One thing is clear – big “sheets” of the same tags under each post will not lead you to anything.
Hashtags allow you to find something interesting on a specific topic or section, so it's better to put on posts those that reflect the meaning the best. You can also follow these guidelines:
– Based on your audience, choose the right hashtag language.
– Do not use spaces or symbols in the tag.
– Put original hashtags with a link to your product.
– Do not try to put the highest frequency hashtags, because of the high competition you are unlikely to be seen.
– Forget about spam hashtags, you risk getting banned.
– Update the number and relevance of hashtags.
As for geotags, they are also a good source of traffic, but you won’t be able to use them “randomly” either. It is difficult to break into the Top, but it is real to “pick up” bots in this way.
Make friends with the Facebook advertising account
Instagram loves those who invest in it. Who doesn't love 😉 Official advertising methods increase reach and make your “karma” better by algorithmically promoting you in the feed and giving priority to your page/post over similar ones. Read more about setting up targeted advertising here.
What prevents you from increasing your coverage on Instagram or how not to do it?
1 "Dead Souls" among your subscribers
Your statistics and relevancy is based on the ratio of your total number of followers to the number of active followers.
Accordingly, the more live interested users in your account, the better the statistics.
If you have a lot of subscribers “to the heap”, for the sake of quantity, then they will “eat up” your relevance and drag you down the display positions. The Instagram algorithm recommends those pages where there is a greater concentration of live, relevant traffic.
Once a month, you can “cleanse” subscribers for bots and just onlookers, then look at the ER (Engagement Rate) indicator and you will see completely different engagement statistics.
Also, under the block, it is worth considering accounts with the number of subscriptions from 1000k, the chances that they basically see you are zero.
We can say that the algorithm “randomly” shows your publications to subscribers. The more likes they get, relative to impressions, the higher the post, story goes. If there are a lot of “dead souls” among your audience, then you should not expect likes, which means reaching the top impressions.
2 Cheat, promotion, masslooking and massliking
Forget it. Get out of all such services. Using them is fraught with a block, a shadowban and the exclusion of various tools and functions for your page.
However, the reason for the refusal of such services is not only this. If you understand at least a little how the Instagram algorithm works (we wrote about this in a previous article ), then you know that the system is guided by your behavioral characteristics and the circle of people that you create. Your target audience is probably not Indians.
Why can't you add bots to your profile?
You wind up subscribers for your pure audience, most often these are bots from India. After that, Instagram does not understand what to do, so it either stops showing your account at all – that is, it cuts the coverage among the target audience, or starts showing your account to Indian residents in the recommended ones.
3 Givas: participation and subscriptions
Givas fall into the same piggy bank. You have to be careful with them. By participating in them, you create your own algorithmic Instagram field. The system will calculate the nature of new subscriptions and show you to relevant users, who often do not fall into your target audience at all, and in the opposite direction, you will be offered content from similar accounts.
Let's summarize how to increase Instagram reach:
- Be interactive and proactive, even in daily posts. Plan the content, make it diverse, with a high-quality semantic load and an attractive visual.
- Use Stories mechanics, engage, ask, chat and play. Make more video content, use interactives, narratives, GIF animations and AR masks.
- Use geotags and hashtags wisely, forget about copy-paste from notes, do not go into high-frequency and spam tags.
- Make friends with the Facebook advertising account – make creatives and ads, increase traffic through official promotion tools. They will increase your “karma” and, accordingly, coverage.
- Exclude, block "Dead Souls" among your subscribers.
- Forget about cheat services, promotion, mass looking and mass liking.
Most importantly, remember that your viewers are real people. Make content that will be of interest to you. Remember that a person receives not a product or service, but what stands behind them. Quality and lifestyle, valuable information, a pleasant pastime, a ready-made solution to an urgent problem.