Instagram is a powerhouse social media platform that can help spread awareness, encourage brand affinity, and promote sales. But are you using Instagram to its full abilities? Instagram offers a capability called boosting that could dramatically change your performance on the platform! Read on to learn more.
What is Boosting?
Simply put, boosting is when you spend money to increase the visibility of one of your posts. So, what does that really mean? When you make a post on Instagram, it’s likely only being shown to a percentage of your current followers (unless your post lands on the Discover page.) To increase the reach of the post (AKA, how many people see it) you can put some money behind it to boost it!
When you boost an Instagram post, you can choose your goal, budget, length of time you want it to run, and the audience you wish to target. This means you can be super granular about the specifics of your boosting, unlike other platforms such as TikTok where you can’t choose your target audience.
When you choose to boost a post on Instagram, you’ll have three goals to choose from–more profile visits, more messages, or more website visits. The goal you choose will depend on what you’re hoping to get out of the post. If you want to direct people to your site, opt for website visits. If your focus is social engagement and follower growth, profile visits are your best option. If you want to boost your community engagement, encouraging more messages is always best. You can also choose how much you want to spend on boosting a post from a hundred dollars up to tens of thousands depending on your desired result.
Is Boosting for Influencers or Just Brands?
When it comes to boosting influencer content, there are two things you need to know:
1. Brands may request as part of their content usage to put paid spend behind boosting influencer content that the creator themselves has posted on their page. This is also called whitelisting. This can be beneficial to brands because your brand awareness and messaging are being promoted via paid but through a third-party account giving your brand more credibility.
2. As long as influencers have a business account on Instagram, they can boost their posts to increase engagement and awareness. This could be beneficial for creators who are just starting or for people who feel like they’re struggling to capture the right audience.
Boosting on Other Platforms
Aside from Instagram, TikTok is another great social platform to put some paid spend behind your organic posts. As long as you have a TikTok business manager account, TikTok allows you to create boosting campaigns dedicated to gaining followers and engagement. If you’re running a new page or are looking for those large vanity metrics (follower size and engagement), then boosting on TikTok can be extremely successful and much easier to scale vs. Instagram.
Boosting Best Practices
The great thing about boosting on Instagram is that they let you get super granular with whom you’re targeting, where they’re located, what interests they have, etc. You’ll want to experiment with different audiences to see what resonates and works for your page before deciding on one set audience.
Try boosting your top-performing organic content for the month as that typically performs best when boosted compared to lower-performing pieces.
Experiment with the amount of money you put behind these posts. Meta doesn’t currently offer best practices on spend or performance with boosting, but they recommend experimenting on all fronts regarding audiences, spending, and content.
How to boost on Instagram
Boosting a post on Instagram is relatively simple. First, ensure that your page is a business account, and then click on the post you wish to boost. Make sure the selected post does not include any copyrighted music or content as it will be denied by Instagram. Click on the blue ‘boost post’ button on the right-hand side underneath the content. Next, choose your desired goal and then pick your target audience. You can choose an automatic audience on which Instagram will base it on your current follower base or get super specific. You can choose gender, age range, cities/countries, and even special interests. Lastly, you input your desired daily budget and time range. You can either run the ad until you pause it manually or choose a set time range. It typically takes a few hours for boosted posts to be approved and then you can start seeing results!
Make sure to keep track of the performance of your posts to determine whether boosting is working, what type of content performs best, and how much it’s worth it for you to spend on boosting. Each account is different so it’s important to experiment with different types of content and target audiences before you find the ones that work best for you!
We’d love to chat with you here at Inked to discuss all things boosting, paid media, organic social, and more!