In order to find success in digital advertising, you need to meet your audience members where they are. Instagram has become one of the biggest social media platforms with over 1 billion monthly active users. Instagram’s platform is unique from other social media sites, as the visual-focused feed eliminates wordy text posts and status updates. That means that an advertising strategy on Instagram has to be different from platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn.
With so many different users on Instagram, there’s almost certainly an audience for you to find. However, getting that audience to engage with your posts is another story. Instagram has many different tools to help you advertise, like an Ads Manager and e-commerce capabilities. However, you still need to know the tips and tricks to increase your Instagram ad engagement.
Engagement refers to the interactions that your audience has with your posts. This includes liking an image, adding a reaction to your Instagram Stories, or clicking your shopping links to go to your online store. Without engagement, the number of followers and amount of posts you have won’t be meaningful. Digital advertising success on Instagram is dependent on your Instagram Ad engagement metrics.
In order to increase your Instagram Ad engagement, you need to look towards data. There are many data-proven tips that have solid backing to help guide your Instagram advertising strategies and improve your engagement metrics. Let’s take a look at four of those data-proven tips to increase your Instagram Ad engagement in a few simple steps.
1. Post Instagram Carousels
One of the best ways to increase your engagement is to change up your posting format from just singular images or videos to a full image carousel. A carousel on Instagram is when you post multiple images or videos in a single post that a viewer can then swipe right or left to scan through. This not only keeps your audience on your posts for longer, therefore increasing the odds of them engaging with the post, but it also helps you communicate even more information about your brand, products, or services.
Carousels provide high levels of engagement across the board and help capture the attention of your audiences by encouraging them to want to swipe through your images and learn more about the post. And, with more information to absorb, a user is more likely to stop their scroll and engage with your post as it doesn’t blend in the way your other posts might.
2. Boost Your Highest Performing Ads
Every once in a while, you’ll find that one of your ads is performing much better than your others. Whether that comes down to the content, the offer, the design, or the timing of the advertisement, you don’t want to let the opportunity go to waste. Boosting a post on Instagram refers to the process of paying the social media site to promote a specific post to either your followers or another targeted audience. This helps you keep the momentum going on those posts that bring the biggest impact.
You can even use different marketing automation tools to help you schedule and organize your boosted posts. This helps capture even more data and get your message in front of more audiences. Boosted posts help you gain the attention of more audience members. In turn, this means that you have a higher chance of getting engagement out of your audience. Spending time honing in on the audience you want to promote a post to can help you get the highest levels of Instagram Ad engagement.
3. Optimize Caption Length
One of the biggest differentiators between Instagram and other social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter is the style of post. While all the other platforms listed tend to lean towards text posts with an accompanying image, Instagram works almost oppositely. On Instagram, the big attraction is the image or video that you post. Although character limit is considerably high, Instagram posts with a concise caption receive better engagement.
That means that optimizing your captions and the caption length is key to your Instagram Ad strategy. Make sure that you are using SEO best practices to ensure that your post can be found through a search. The caption must add value to the image or video by providing context or next steps for your audience. What’s the action goal you want users to complete? Posts should either redirect users to the specific product page or prompt them to contact your business. By providing a next step, you help increase your Instagram Ad engagement.
4. Use Human Faces to Add a personal touch
It can be tempting to post nothing but product images and detailed videos about your brand and services. However, there’s an important human element that needs to be added to your posting strategy in order to yield the best results. The best use of human faces is product reviews. Influencer marketing is a great strategy due to the nature of user-generated content. People want to see authentic reviews and representations of a brand.
Photos with human faces get more engagement than images that don’t. People want to connect with others, even if the face they are looking at is promoting a product or service from your brand. Keeping that human touch in your images helps your followers understand that they are people working behind your brand and it isn’t a faceless entity. Whether through influencer marketing, success stories, or behind the scenes details, adding that human touch is necessary to increase your Instagram Ad engagement metrics.
Improving Your Instagram Ad Engagement with the Help of Experts
Instagram advertising works differently from other platforms and requires a unique strategy in order to garner the best results. Otherwise, you won’t be getting the most out of your time and budget investment in the platform. Thankfully, there are many data-driven solutions that can help you increase your Instagram Ad engagement rates and see more success through your social media advertising efforts.
If you want to learn more about Instagram advertising and social media advertising, then look no further than L7 Advertising. We specialize in helping you build the best digital advertising strategies for your brand and bringing your business to the next level. If you are interested in learning more about how we can help you achieve your advertising goals, then click on the link to contact us and get started today.