How to launch a product on instagram

How to Launch a Product on Instagram Step-by-Step in 2023

First of all, congratulations on your new product. 🥳

We know there’s a lot that goes into creating a new product and you’ve done all you can to make that happen.

What’s next?

Now, it’s time to let your audience know what you’ve got in store for them.

How do you do that?

Simple, via a product launch!

Don’t worry, we'll show you how to do that in this guide.

More specifically, we’ll talk about:

Why Instagram is an ideal platform for the product launch
Examples of product launches on Instagram to inspire you

That said, let’s kick things off!

Why is Instagram Ideal for Launching a Product?

The short answer is that Instagram has features that allow businesses to announce the launch of a new product with ease.

Aside from that, Instagram happens to be one of the top social media platforms in the world with an easy-to-use interface.

To be more specific, it’s the fourth most popular social platform in the world with about 1.28 billion users.

That’s roughly 30% of internet users globally.

In another report, it was estimated that by 2023, there would be over 1.3 billion Instagram users.

Here’s what we’re driving at: Instagram is popular and has an audience wide enough for your product launch campaign.

Let’s take a look at some other reasons why Instagram is ideal for a product launch:

It’s a hub for product discovery

If you’re bothered about whether or not you’d be able to reach people when you make the announcement on IG, you don’t have to.

Why?

Because Instagram is known to be a platform where people discover new brands and products.

According to Facebook, people use Instagram to know what’s trending and even to research products before purchasing them.

In the survey they carried out, 83% of the people said Instagram helps them discover new products and services.

So you can be certain that people will see your new product when it’s launched on Instagram.

And if you include product information, 87% of people in the survey say it’ll drive them to take action.

Here are some of the actions people said they took:

Image Source: Facebook

It can help you boost conversions

Would you like people to take action when they see your product?

Then, you should announce it on Instagram. The platform makes it easy to build awareness that leads to conversions.

63% of people say Instagram enables them to create connections with brands.

Also, an Instagram for Business survey showed that 44% of people use the social app to shop weekly.

Not only are people active on Instagram, but they’re also more than willing to go the extra mile which could include visiting your store, buying your product, sharing it, and more.

All of this is just to say you can expect conversions when you launch a product on Instagram.

It has great eCommerce features

Most brands on social media have one thing in common: they have a link(s) in their bio.

The link usually leads to their website or store outside the platform.

What if we told you that in many cases users don’t click through using the link even if they interact with your content?

A study by computer scientists at Columbia University showed that 59% of the links shared on social media have never been clicked.

That could mean the link in your bio might not have been clicked on before.

Well, thanks to certain features such as the product tag and Instagram shopping feature, people don’t have to go off IG to learn more about your products or buy them.

So when you launch your product on Instagram, people can discover them and make purchases right there and then.

There are affordable advertising opportunities

Running ads on Instagram is also cost-effective.

The average cost-per-click (CPC) of an Instagram ad is between $0.50 and $1.50.

That means you may not have to spend so much on paid digital marketing campaigns.

You can also decide to promote your product organically if you don’t have a huge marketing budget and still achieve your objective.

How?

By leveraging influencer marketing.

You’ll get to partner with influencers and creators during the product launch to produce user generated content that can attract potential customers without spending as much as you would for paid marketing.

It allows for easy engagement

Another reason why Instagram is ideal for your product launch is that it has a user-friendly interface.

As such, brands and regular users can easily engage with each other.

According to statistics, the average business profile on Instagram has an engagement rate of 1.94% from followers.

The visual content you put out draws them in and the interface allows them to like, comment, share, or bookmark the post.

Being able to engage with people when you launch a product is important because it’ll help you gather feedback so you know what your audience is expecting.

This, in turn, allows you to perhaps improve on the ad creative you’ve used, target new audiences if you’re running an ad, or improve the product to suit your audience's needs.

Alright, it’s time…let’s get down to business!

How to Launch a Product on Instagram (Step-by-Step Guide)

In this section, we’re going to show in detail how you can launch a product on Instagram.

We know this is the part you’ve been waiting for so let’s jump right in!

Step #1: Define your audience

When you launch your product, you’d like people to interact with it and buy it, right?

Well for that to happen, it needs to be seen by people who are interested in the product or have been searching for it.

Like the popular digital marketing phrase “selling or advertising to everyone is almost the same as advertising to no one,” and you want to avoid that.

That’s one of the reasons why you need to define your audience. It will help you reach the actual end users of your product.

That way, you won’t have to spend more than you should on customer acquisitions

Essentially, defining your audience ensures that your product makes it to the market successfully.

How do you define your audience?

Know who your current audience is: Take a look at your customer base. Who are the people who buy from you? Why do they buy from you?

Go through your social media posts and monitor who interacts with your posts, likes them, comments, or shares them.

Then, find similar characteristics and interests. There’s a good chance people like them could be your customers too.

Take a look at your competition: Keep track of who your competitors are targeting. Who are their current customers? If they’re in the same niche, you might be able to pick up some cues that’ll help you.
Select a demographic to target: Based on the benefits of your product, figure out who needs your product and is more likely to buy it.

Here are some factors that can help you: age, location, gender, income level, family status, ethnicity, and more.

Consider their psychographics: This refers to the characteristics of your typical customers. What are their interests, lifestyles, and behaviors? What are their personalities like?

Once you’ve been able to define your audience, the other steps become much easier to follow.

Step #2: Develop your content strategy

Content strategy refers to the planning, production, and delivery of content to be used on the launch day.

It’s an important part of your marketing strategy when you’ll get to decide what type of content will be used for the campaign among other things.

Those ‘other things’ can include:

What format they’ll be in; e.g., videos, images, Instagram stories, carousels, etc.
What the objective of the content is

Why do you need to develop a content strategy?

So you can have a successful product launch.

More specifically, it can help you reach your audience, raise awareness for your product, and increase your sales.

“How can I create one?”

Audit your Instagram account: This involves optimizing your bio by adding your contact information and making sure it will attract your target audience. You also need to think about what your goals are when auditing your account.

Create a theme for your content: Considering Instagram is a visual platform, you need to think of fonts, colors, or filters you can use in your content that reflect your brand. In addition, what format should the content be in?

Produce content: Since this is a product launch, you want the content you produce to be high-quality, create awareness about the product, and get your audience to take action.

Create a content calendar: A calendar will guide you on when to post before and after the launch. As such you want to consider how often you want to post and what times your audience will be online when creating it.

Widen your content reach: Here you’re concerned about how to get more people aware of your product.

This involves partnering with influencers, cross-promoting on other platforms such as TikTok, or running giveaways.

Step #3: Partner with the right content creators and influencers

The next step you want to take when launching your product on Instagram is to collaborate with creators and influencers.

We’ve mentioned them a couple of times in this piece and that’s because they can be considered as Instagram users who’ve ‘hacked the system’.

They know what works on the platform so you can use their expertise to your advantage.

A report by Smart Insights showed that 51% of marketers say partnering with influencers has helped them acquire new customers.

Consumers have also had good reports about influencers.

84% of them have said they’ve made the decision to buy a product based on an influencer’s recommendation.

In another study, consumers said they’ll take the word of an influencer or people they know over messages from actual brands.

What we’re trying to say is that partnering with Instagram influencers and creators can have a significant impact on your product launch.

What’s more, you’ll be able to leverage their audience to raise brand awareness as they’ve been able to build a large community of IG users.

Even working with influencers with a small following, such as micro-influencers, who have a follower count of 10k–100k, and collaborating with them can grant you access to their community.

This step is actually recommended by Instagram.

See what they said about it: “product launches promoted by creators perform better than the ones done without involving creators. ”

“So, how do I collaborate with creators?”

First, you need to find them and that can be done by visiting a creator marketplace like Insense or Instagram’s creator marketplace.

If you want to use Insense, here’s how it works:

Visit Insense and sign up or log in to get access to our dashboard

Generate a brief by clicking +New Campaign
Fill out the brief and get matched with creators

Pick the creator(s) you’d like to work with and begin your collaboration
Get content when they’re done via our chat feature

…and just like that, your partnership has begun!

Now, creators can tag the new product in the post they produce after they’ve received approval from you.

Step #4: Take advantage of Instagram’s features

As stated earlier on, Instagram has several features that can help you build hype and notify people of your new products.

Guess what?

They’re there for you to use!

Let’s take a look at them:

Product launch tags: This feature tags your new product across different formats including Instagram Reels, Stories, Live, and Feed as seen in the screenshot below.

Image Source: Instagram

Product launch stickers: Includes countdown and reminder stickers that you can use in IG Stories so people are notified when your product is ready.

Notifications: Would you like shoppers to get a reminder before the launch date? You can do that by tapping push notifications in the Activity Tab.

Product detail pages: With this feature, customers can see more images of your product, learn more about it, and set reminders too.

Live shopping: This is ideal for launch day and allows you to celebrate with your audience in real time.

You can also pin the product on the live event with a countdown timer so everyone knows when it drops. It will look like this:

Then when your product goes live, it will be in your Instagram shop and also tagged in posts.

Another thing to note during the new product launch is that only shoppers in countries where checkout on Instagram is available can purchase it.

So, you might want to inform your audience about that.

Step #5: Leverage Instagram ads

For our final step, you can amplify your social media marketing efforts by running paid ads.

If you want, you can kick things off during the pre-launch stages to build hype and get your DMs buzzing before it’s officially launched.

Why is this important?

Well according to Instagram, 50% of users will be more interested in a brand when they see ads from them.

Instagram ads help you reach more people by allowing you to decide who can see your content through targeting.

And if you happen to promote content produced by a creator as an Instagram ad (creator licensing), you’ll get to extend your reach even further.

How can you create IG ads?

1. Select the creative

The ad creative refers to the image or video you want to use. Decide on which one you want to use and ensure it’s captivating and engaging.

2. Choose an objective

Do you want to drive awareness for your product? Drive traffic to the site? You’ll need to choose a goal as it helps you set the direction of the campaign.

How do you choose your objective?

Go to Ads Manager and tap the +Create green button at the left side of the page.

Click the green button and a dialog box will pop up. There, select the objective of your campaign and tap Continue to proceed.

3. Set your budget

Decide how much you want to spend on your campaign. It can be a daily budget or a lifetime budget.

The daily budget refers to how much you’ll spend every day, while the lifetime is the amount to be spent during the lifetime of your campaign.

For the lifetime budget, you might want to set an end date but it’s optional for the daily budget.

4. Target your audience

Remember our first step in this guide? Well, you need to select your audience so your ad is shown only to them.

To do that, tap Ad Set and navigate to the Audience section. There you can define your audience based on their:

Language
Demographics, interests, or behaviors
Location
Age group
Gender

5. Place your ad

Here, you’ll get to decide where you want to place your ads—Reels, IG Feed posts, Stories, Explore, or anywhere you choose.

Click the Ad Sets again, and navigate to Placements.

You’ll have two options to choose from—Advantage+placements and Manual placements.

Select Manual placements. Then, proceed to select Instagram as the platform and further down to Placements to decide where the ads will appear.

In the screenshot below, only Reels was selected but you can choose multiple placements if you want.

Thereafter, select a call-to-action (CTA), complete the ad by following the on-screen instructions, and submit it for review.

Once it’s approved, your product launch ads will go live!

Next, let’s show you a few examples of product launches on IG to inspire you.

3 Examples of Products Killing it On Instagram

We’ve got some great examples of brands that have launched and promoted their products on Instagram.

So we thought, “why not share them with you?”

You know, to sort of provide you with a workable template that can guide you when it’s time to launch.

Let’s dive right in!

Product #1: Teva

Our first example is from Teva, a French shoe brand.

One of their posts got almost 3k likes including comments.

What did they do?

So far, they’ve leveraged organic ads where they featured one of their managers in the post showing what the product looked like.

It didn’t give off that brand-ish vibe, so we can say it’s user-generated content.

After the launch, their Instagram feed still had multiple posts featuring their new product.

Product #2: Teddy Blake

Teddy Blake, a New-York-based handbag brand launched a new product—‘The Kim’ that got their audience talking on Instagram.

They used organic posts as their Instagram marketing strategy and it was nothing too complex, just an image of their product in use.

Teddy Blake also made use of hashtags to make the post more visible.

Product #3: Beardbrand

Our final example is from Beardbrand. They changed the packaging and name of their product so technically we can say it’s a new product.

They created a pre-launch post with an interesting caption explaining the new look.

The short version of it is that they wanted to provide more value for their customers and this made them engage with the post.

Beardbrand also used hashtags as part of its social media strategy to increase its reach before the launch date.

Alright, let’s bring this piece to a close!

Now Over to You

If you’ve been worried about how you’ll announce the new product to your audience, we want to believe that worry is now out the door.

And it’s all thanks to our step-by-step guide! 😊

At the same time, we understand that getting started can be overwhelming and, as such, we want to remove that burden for you.

So feel free to book a demo with Insense so we can help you get started on the social media campaign for your product launch.

Sounds good, right?

Well, we’re glad you stopped by and we hope to see you soon!

How to Launch Your New Products on Instagram

Update: Live Shopping is no longer available as of March 16, 2023.

Congratulations! After much hard work, your business has a new product launching! Now what?

It’s time to shout about your new product and share the big news with your followers! Product launches — a feature currently available for checkout-enabled Instagram businesses in the U. S. — are a way for businesses to announce an upcoming launch and to build anticipation in the lead-up to a launch using native features on Instagram.

Also known as drops, product launches are a way to sell that taps into fandom, cultural relevance, exclusivity, and a strong call to action. The product launches feature empowers businesses to reach these new shoppers who are waiting to discover the latest products on Instagram. You can generate buzz and awareness for your new products with:

1. Product Launch Tags
Product launch tags can be used across all formats including Instagram Feed, Stories, Live and Reels.

Hill House Home (@hillhouse) shares a product in feed.

2. Product Launch Stickers
Countdown and reminder stickers can be used in Stories so that shoppers can easily set reminders to be notified when your product drops.

3. Notifications
Shoppers can get a reminder for an upcoming product launch through notifications in the Activity Tab and push notifications.

4. Product Detail Pages
Shoppers can also learn more about the product, see more images and set reminders in Product Detail Pages.

Businesses also have the opportunity to gain additional exposure and reach new users when using product launches. A new “Drops” destination within the Instagram Shop tab features current, upcoming and past product launches. 44% of people surveyed strongly associate Instagram with discovering local/small brands¹, so make sure you’re getting your products in front of as many people as possible.

To get started, here’s a sample promotional timeline for how to launch a new product on Instagram:

5-7 Days Out
Build buzz by tagging your new products in any type of Instagram content. We recommend using a blend of feed posts, stories and video content. Once products are part of a scheduled product launch, they will not become available for sale prematurely even if you are tagging them in pre-launch media.

3-5 Days Out
The product launch tag in Feed and product launch sticker in Stories allows shoppers to set reminders for your launch. To keep the momentum going, be sure to post about your new product(s) daily like Hill House Home (@hillhouse) does in the clip below.

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1-3 Days Out
Partner with creators to create additional buzz and reach within their audiences for your product launch. Product launches that are promoted by creators perform better on average than similar launches that don’t involve creators.

Launch Day
Live Shopping lets you celebrate in real time with your followers. Go live and pin your launch product(s) in the final minutes before launch, when a countdown timer will display. At launch time, a celebratory “confetti” animation will appear, as you can see in the example below from Hill House Home (@hillhouse).

After Launch
Using the product launches feature allows you to reach new users, so make sure to engage your growing community even after the launch using shoppable media. Continue to sell through remaining launch inventory, if applicable, by using ads with product tags to find shoppers most likely to be interested in your launch.

Looking to learn more about Instagram Shopping? Learn how to prepare your shop on Instagram for the holidays or to create collections that make it easier for customers to find exactly what they’re looking for.

How to start a business on Instagram from scratch and get real results - Marketing on vc.ru

Writing about the promotion of social networks is a thankless task. And not because there are now more experts than customers - just the speed with which the platforms roll out updates kills all romance.

129 787 views

And everything would be fine, I would work quietly further, but somewhere between the analysis of the next account and communication with a marketer on Facebook (by the way, were you also offered such a unique opportunity?) I realized one important thing. The problem of most entrepreneurs is in a fragmented picture.

They read bloggers, brand articles, watch free webinars, save posts with snippets of information, and test everything they see. Pieces, without understanding the basics, without a system.

And yes, tests are good. But strategies need to be tested - concepts and tools within the framework of these strategies, and not just the next "finds" of information gypsies.

Therefore, here I share a step-by-step launch and promotion system. Everything is as it is.

Developments went through fire, water and a couple of dozens of trials in real businesses. They will come in handy for entrepreneurs who are just entering Instagram, and for those who have already managed to screw up with bots, cheats and masslooking.

In general, I will write briefly and to the point. Get comfortable. And if anyone needs it later, extended information can be taken in PDF.

Strategy

Everything always starts with a strategy, even shopping. What can we say about business?!

But!

Before the strategy, you should have a clear understanding of the audience (oh my bastard, I wrote this) and defined promotion goals. With goals, I'm sure everything is clear, but with people it's harder. Businesses need to find those who will willingly leave their money with them. But is the one who pays always the initiator of the purchase?

Does a big and busy politician himself choose gifts for his ladies? Or is he looking for a place for dinner? And does mommy overwhelmed with duties look out for handmade gliders herself?

No.

Wives, girlfriends or even helpers come to the politician with their requests; to mom - the daughter comes and points her finger at the account in which you need to order something.

Therefore, before defining your audience, ask yourself a couple of questions:

Who pays for your product or service.
Who makes the purchase decision.
Who influences the choice and to what extent.

And now the strategy

It should grow on the overall marketing strategy and be tightly tied to the sales plan.

There are three basic scenarios that you can promote on Instagram today, adjusting any of them to fit your reality.

Development of a full-fledged blog, a community of people with the same interests

These are always accounts with a useful component. Regular posting and high-quality content are important here - tons of unique photos and engaging texts - to keep the interest of the existing audience and attract new subscribers. Focus on organic reach and all the perks that go with it.

The option, you understand, is not simple and definitely not cheap.

Creating a showcase - posting if necessary

When there is something to say, something to show and something to share. In this version, the focus is not on the community, but on a quick result.

We put ads on each post and control the volume of traffic, coverage, recognition, interactions, responses to invitations, sales, and so on.

The strategy is suitable for businesses that simply have nothing to write blogs about - developers, sales of special equipment, transportation - or those who do not have a budget for a constant flow of content.

Combined version

Keep a blog, gather an interested audience around it, and advertise some of your publications to enhance the effect. Here are the results of content boosting we received in a travel blog about Italy:

RK for involvement even for a couple of bucks gives excellent results Marina Velitchenko

OK, we have chosen a strategy, created a business account, let's move on to the settings.

Preparing page

In Instagram, the system is important.

The system is the parts that work together in a large mechanism.

Therefore, everything influences the process and the final result of promotion.

Normal design, competent filling of information, use of all the tools that Instagram offers - pinned stories, TV, marks, branded content, and more.

All page elements should match in style with adjacent objects and send readers a magical vibe, just kidding - should clearly present the business. Be understandable and pleasing to the eye for a specific audience.

We all like to watch beautiful accounts, and even more so to buy from a business that has not stinted on a normal brand packaging. Personally, I just love the @petroglyph_water page.

Conciseness, naturalness and "wild" atmosphere permeate every element - from a brief description of the page to the style of photo processing and truly live content.

Two short sentences in a header, but how catchy

When not just pink and blue presets from the network, but normal author's processing of photos in the same style

I will not describe how to correctly fill in the account description or set tags here - everything is in the document. But let's talk about content and its design.

Content

Promotion does not happen without a thoughtful content plan. Even if you or your copywriter are truly brilliant, there will come a time—in a month or three—when the ideas run out, the showcase products run out, and you still need to go on air regularly.

For these purposes, they are working on a strategic content plan. Not just a set of ideas from the Internet, but a sales system through text. Make a plan at least a month in advance. Ideally, three to six months. How to do it correctly, I already wrote on vc.ru.

What to publish

Many things. Who needs ideas - a lot of ideas - for content, write to me, I'll give you huge collections. But the main thing is that all these posts should be positive. As Anketologist reports in one of the latest studies, Russians have already formed their own feed and are accustomed to its appearance and effect. They see and want to see more positive things.

I would venture to suggest that people have enough problems and "pains" that someone is already pressing on in everyday life. In social networks, they want to relax. Give them that opportunity.

How often to post

It is not so important with what frequency, the main thing is with the same frequency. Every day, every three days... if once a week, then strictly once a week, on the same day. It is important. Failures in posting are fixed by algorithms and reduce organic reach.

Y - uniqueness of posts

And their naturalness. Real product photos sell better than polished stock photos. Galleries get less coverage, videos, on the contrary, get more coverage and charge live emotions, which is always good for business.

And unpacking videos from customers show the result even cooler, because they combine both social proof and motion, which our attention clings to more readily.

But all this must be unique, like the content on the sites, in order to be properly indexed and get more impressions.

Visually

In brand style. Filters, of course, can be used, but this is already out of date. Endless tapes also sunk into ... somewhere very far away.

Now the trend is block design - publication of 9-12 photos from one photoset or location. I found the most beautiful example of this concept from @brunellocucinelli_brand.

You can play with color and shape, you can shoot your product on one - preferably inactive - background, as here:

You can get confused with the design, take multi-layered photos, alternate near, far and macro shots, or you can just make a neat look of a classic checkerboard. And you can never go wrong with light colors:

If this is very difficult, long, unbearable, order a set of neutral templates from the designer. It's not expensive, but it helps out when there are not enough product photos.

Optimization

In social networks, these are hashtags. The same search queries and keywords by which new subscribers will find you. Instagram is one of two social networks where these tags work to their full potential.

Would you like to see how it works? I give screenshots of the current project with a statue of literally a couple of previous weeks.

Want to be even tougher? The same 500-600 subscribers, and this is the buzz:

Geotagging

Here, too, everything is extremely simple - they work, and not bad. It is important to mark not cities or countries, but specific locations: maternity hospitals, art schools for children's goods; cigar clubs, expensive restaurants and country resorts for a luxury shoe manufacturer.

Aim consciously and you will be happy.

But Instagram notifies restaurant owners about marks. Vasya tagged the men's club in his Stories, a notification about Vasya arrived on the club's account.

Good way to track your audience, collect user generated content and even find advertising partners.

Stories

Instagram Stories. Why do you need them if you sell pizza ovens? Not everything is so simple here - Stories have ceased to be a toy for children and lifestyle bloggers, they are constantly turning into ... turning ... into a powerful marketing tool - Stories are viewed by more than 500 million users a day.

In the summer of 2018 it was 400 million, and in the fall of 2017 it was about 300 million, in 2016 it was 250 million. The pace is reactive, right?!

Let's see how they help you:

What to do with it all

Play . Now it is in trend. Screenshots of predictions, rebuses with emoticons, mazes, chains of questions with stickers - all this appeals to the audience and algorithms.
Telling stories . Literally. Stories are used for multi-page storytelling - such a consistent story on several spreads. You can write about anything in the storytelling format.
Put active links to products or other social networks. The feature is also available for accounts with less than 10,000 followers. If you confirm your page with documents - get a blue checkmark - you can put links even with 20 subscribers. This works for brands as well as people.
Run long advertisements . You can now start targeting from the Facebook account for Instagram Stories on videos 60-120 seconds long, instead of 15, as it was before.

Promotion

Promotion methods directly depend on the business goals. What do you want from social networks - recognition, subscribers, traffic to other resources, sales? What? Decided? Then choose from the list.

Paid and effective methods: targeting (works especially well by geo), bloggers, advertising in public, mailings in direct (a mini analogue of email marketing), native advertising on websites, in articles, in videos - everywhere, where the hands and imagination will reach.
Free , but slow options: optimized profile header, beautifully designed page, normal content, tags - hashtags, geotags, name tags - post relinking, external links to an Instagram account, cross-posting, guerrilla marketing, commenting, liking and following (preferably in manual mode), networking, contests, mutual PR and joint promotions.
Gray and frankly toxic methods of developing a subscription base: giveaways - they are also star contests with expensive gifts and a bunch of sponsors - activity chats, like-times, etc. d.

Useful resources

I left the full list of services in the document, here I will quickly go through the most useful ones. I’ll tell you about the little-known ones in more detail, so that you understand what to expect from them.

Microlendings

To group contacts and business cards if there is no site: Mssg.me, Taplink, Linkin.bio. Or a direct link to WhatsApp: https://wa.me/[your number].

In addition, a whole WhatsApp ecosystem is now developing, where you can assemble a convenient landing page, connect a bot and completely forget about other sites.

Official delayed posting

Facebook Creator Studio or Boompublic - Content can be purchased from creators. Business sets the price. There is a convenient editor, a calendar for planning, cross-posting to all social networks and, most importantly, safe posting on Instagram.

Crossposting

Content reposts from Instagram to other social networks are limited, so onemorepost.ru helps a lot. It knows how to distribute even old posts in auto mode to VKontakte groups, to most popular social networks and instant messengers.

Moderation

This is a pain for every SMM manager, and even more so for a businessman who manages social networks himself and often misses important questions in the comments. It is advisable to use the official Pages mobile app from Facebook, but it also often loses comments. There is a legal alternative.

Morecom.ru - collects and does not lose comments, sends them to VKontakte or Telegram. Works officially, approved by Facebook to use the Graph API.

The bot helps answer questions directly from Telegram, the answers fall exactly into the original comment thread, and do not fly apart. You can work with a team and multiple accounts.

There are extended statistics on the page and search by comments - by phrase, nickname, tags. Soon they promise push notifications and binding to Slack. Our sales team is very helpful.

Analytics

Livedune is the only Russian-speaking Instagram partner in the niche, and the most adequate in terms of price and features.

For target

Deep links or spacers to open ads directly in the Instagram app - as much as some colleagues may protest against these assistants, I recommend using urlgeni.us. Why am I there - Facebook marketers recommend!

Audience parsers

There is no way without them now. Pepper.ninja or InstaParserPro are good but expensive.

SERM - online reputation management

YouScan, Brand Analytics will show what was said about you, even if it has been removed.

Marketing base

Without the basics of doing business, no promotion will be successful, so here is a link to a free business development program. Joint project of Google and Sberbank.

I have everything.

Use, upgrade Instagram, get more sales. #instagram

Instagram is one of the most popular social networks. As of April 2020, Mediascope estimates its monthly audience in Russia at 61 million people, 28 million of which check the feed daily. This is the fourth most popular social network, users spend an average of 30 minutes a day on it.

72% of users have an average or higher income level, 10.5% work in managerial positions. Instagram ads are the right tool to tell these people about your products and services.

WEB-Index Mediascope about the audience of Instagram

Instagram belongs to Facebook, so you can run ads here in two ways: through the Facebook advertising account and through the Instagram application itself. If you run ads through the Facebook advertising account, then you will have access to all the features of this tool: retargeting pixel, dynamic creatives, detailed statistics. When launched through the application, there are fewer opportunities, but the interface is simpler and it will be faster to launch ads. In this guide, we'll take a look at both tools.

Content:

Preparation
How the advertising on Instagram
WORKS BECOUSE ACCAUNT
We connect the Business Profile
We fill out the Account

Run the advertising through the Instagram
EXTROMENTIVE Facebook
Creating a campaign and choosing a goal
Setting up an ad group
Designing an ad

We have a step-by-step guide to working with Instagram for business. Let's recap the key steps you need to take to get your account ready to run ads.

Registering an account

If you plan to launch advertising through your Facebook account, then you may not need an Instagram account - a company page on Facebook is enough. But if you want to communicate with users directly on Instagram and show them more information about the company and products, then register an account for this.

You can create an account through an application on a smartphone or in a browser on a laptop or computer. To do this, you need mail, phone or Facebook account.

Registering an account in the app

If you don’t have the Instagram app on your smartphone yet, download it from the store:

Instagram on Google Play

Instagram on the App Store

to which you want to link your account. Enter the verification code, create a password, and enter your date of birth.

Registering an account in the browser

Open the registration page in the browser. You can log in to the social network with your Facebook account or create a new one. To do this, enter your phone number or email address, create a username and password. On the next screen, enter your date of birth, then the confirmation code that you will receive by mail or SMS.

The easiest way to use Instagram is from a mobile device, so we recommend downloading the app anyway.

Connecting business profile

A business profile is a commercial Instagram account linked to a company's Facebook page. It differs from the usual one in a set of additional features:

You can view statistics of publications and stories, detailed information on account subscribers: their geography and demographics, the number of subscriptions and unsubscriptions for the last week.
You can add information about the company: opening hours, address, phone number.
You can add a button for communication: when you click on it, the user will see your mail or be able to call immediately.

Compare what a regular profile and a business profile look like from the side of the account owner:

Regular profile

Business profile

burger menu in the upper right corner → "Settings" → "Account" → "Switch to professional account".

Instagram will clarify which category you belong to: "Author" or "Business". The first option is suitable if you are a blogger and develop a personal brand. If you have a company or a store, use the second one.

Specify which category your goods and services belong to, specify contact information. Then link your Facebook account and specify the business page that your Instagram profile will be linked to. If there is none, you can create it here.

Filling the business page will not affect the operation of the advertisement. It is worth paying attention to two points:

When creating a page on Facebook, indicate the correct category of your business, Instagram will use it for the business profile.
If you run ads through your Facebook account without an Instagram account, the system will use the cover and title of this business page in the feed, so it's better to choose a good avatar and name.

Creating and filling an account

Account name, avatar, name and description

Advertising can also be launched from an empty profile, but if a user becomes interested in an ad and opens a page with nothing on it, he may lose interest and leave. Therefore, we recommend filling in information about yourself - adding an avatar, name and profile description.

Pay attention to the avatar and title - this is what the user will immediately see in the feed of publications and stories. We recommend choosing those that will reflect the essence of your business, while being quite simple. For example:

Choose a suitable name - it will be displayed in the search under the account name. The name can contain up to 30 characters. It is worth adding keywords here: occupation, niche, geography and other characteristics that do not duplicate the account name. For example, “Land Law Lawyer” or “Fast Flower Delivery in St. Petersburg”.

Add a description for the account, it can be up to 150 characters long. Tell us what you do, add information about promotions and special offers, if necessary, indicate the hours of operation or the exact address.

A good description will help develop both the business account and the individual author. The account of the Keep Looking network is displayed one of the first on the request "Beauty salon". And the founder of the Generation Z online school develops a personal brand and tells why it is worth subscribing to.

First publications

If you have a new account, before launching an advertising campaign, place posts on a couple of scrolls with detailed information about goods or services, delivery terms, prices, and benefits. Show the product from different angles, share customer reviews.

These publications are needed to convince the user who went to your profile from advertising to buy your product, sign up for a service or order a service. So pay attention to the images, videos, and text you will be using.

In addition to posts, you can also post several stories at once and add them to Highlights, a feed of saved stories. Stories can be divided into groups, for example: product information, delivery information, reviews. Or a separate group for each category of goods or services.

For most products and services, it's worth bearing in mind that the easier it is for a user to get additional information about your offer, the better the ad is likely to work. The design of the profile in this regard works like a good landing page design - it does not convince by itself, but helps the visitor make a decision in your favor.

If you have a physical product, like Dodo Pizza or Boca furniture studio, tell us about it in the feed. If you have services, share cases, work principles or stories of employees like the Huge agency:

Dodo pizza feed

Boca furniture studio feed

Huge agency posts feed

As a result, you have an account with a suitable name, name and description, contacts are filled in, there are first publications and saved stories - it is easy for potential customers to understand what you offer and whether they are interested in it. Great, you are ready to start advertising.

Run ads through the Instagram app

If you have connected a business profile, you can run ads directly from the app on your smartphone. It’s convenient — it’s just a few clicks before the ad starts. On the other hand, there are fewer options available than when working with the Facebook account.

You can only promote posts and stories through the app that you already have in your account. So first post all the content you plan to promote. Please note that you can't promote IGTV posts right now.

Promoting the publication

Destination

Open the publication that we will use in advertising and click "Promote". If you are running ads for the first time, the application will tell you more about where you can send traffic: to your profile, to a website, or directly to direct. The first option is suitable if you want to attract new subscribers. The second is if you are promoting the site. The third is if you want to immediately engage the audience in communication, for example, so that they request a catalog.

Ivan's is an online course for students and recent graduates. On his Instagram account, he publishes useful materials on the subject of the course: potential students sign up, get acquainted with free materials, gain confidence and then pay for the course. The account has both native posts with tips and life hacks and commercial posts promoting products.

Ivan connected a business profile and filled in the feed:

On the one hand, advertising on Instagram for Ivan is an account development tool. So when promoting native publications, he specifies the profile as the destination: users see useful content and subscribe to the account. On the other hand, it is a source of traffic to the site. So in commercial publications, he sends customers to a landing page: users see an interesting offer and go to the site.

If you select a website as a destination, the application will pull up the address specified in the profile settings. Here you can also edit the call to action if you are sending traffic to the site. By default, it is "Details", you can choose another one, to do this, click on the small "Edit" link in the "Your site" item.

Select the appropriate text on the button and click Finish. Then - "Next" in the upper right corner on the screen for choosing a destination.

Room

Let's move on to setting up the audience that will see your ad. You can trust the algorithms and select the "Automatic" option, then the social network will look for users who are similar to the account's current subscribers. This is a convenient option if you have an organic and active base that is interested in your products and services - in this case, Instagram understands which users to look for.

If you don't have many followers yet, or if they follow you because of contests and not for your content, it's better to set up the audience yourself. To do this, select "Create your audience". Here you can specify the geography, interests, and demographics of your audience.

Specify the geography of potential customers in the "Locations" section. In the "Regional" tab, you can specify all the cities or countries that you plan to cover. In the "Local" tab, you can specify a specific address and the radius around it, from 1 to 30 kilometers. Convenient if you are looking for clients for a local business, such as a coffee shop or a beauty salon. Or if you have a limited delivery radius.

In the "Interests" section, in the free form, enter the interests for which you want to reach users. For example, "travelling", "cars", "raising children". Select the appropriate item, and the system will suggest similar interests.

Specify the age range and audience gender. For example, ads can be shown to women between 18 and 35 or men over 30.

Sometimes Ivan publishes entries that are aimed at readers from Moscow, and sometimes at those who live in the regions. When promoting different posts, it uses different geography settings. But interests usually do not change, its subscribers are actively interested in self-development, career, business.

"Places" is a mandatory section, "Interests" is an optional section. The application will tell you how many people match this set of descriptions. If the potential audience is small - usually less than 2500 users - the system will tell you that the potential reach is too narrow. Advertising in this case may be ineffective - few people will see it. To fix this, you can expand the geography and age range, or add additional interests.

Add a name and click "Finish" - the audience will be saved and you can use it for future campaigns.

Budget & Duration

Specify the daily budget for the campaign - from $80 to $20,000 - and the duration in days - from 1 to 30 days. low budget and short duration.

Ivan promotes each post from three to six days. He thinks so: less than three days is too short, the algorithm may not find the right audience. More than six days is a long time, the same people can come across the same post several times. And in the range from three to six, it is optimal: even if the algorithm shows campaigns to the same people, they will constantly see different content.

There are exceptions: if Ivan publishes a very important and viral post, or he announces a new product or event, then he runs the ad longer, up to 14 days. In this case, reach is important to him, and he does not worry about repeat impressions.

The campaign is ready to run. You can click "Promotion Preview" and see how users will see your ad in the feed, in stories, and in the "Interesting" section.

Add a PayPal card or account from which you will pay for advertising. Click "Payment", select a country and enter payment details. If you run ads from Russia, then keep in mind that the system will additionally charge VAT - 20% of advertising costs. That is, if the total campaign budget is 10,000 rubles, then in fact you will pay 12,000 rubles.

Click Create Promotion. The ad will go for moderation.

Promoting a story

Promoting a story works on the same principle — select one of the published stories, indicate the platform to which we want to lead customers, describe the audience, set the budget and send it for moderation.

You can promote a story that you have posted within the last 24 hours, that is saved in your Instagram Highlights or is archived. Open the story, click on the three dots in the bottom right corner and click Promote.

There are several restrictions when promoting a story:

You cannot promote stories with clickable elements: hashtags, polls, user marks.
Stories that may violate the rights of others, such as gifs or masks from the Instagram collection, cannot be promoted.
You can't promote stories that were published too long ago, the statute of limitations is about two years.

Tracking performance

You can track the results of your ads in the Promotions section of your profile page. For each promotion, the application will show the number of impressions, audience parameters, budget expenditure.

Launching advertising through the Facebook account

To launch advertising through the Facebook account, you need to set up a campaign, an ad group and the ad itself. At the same time, only Instagram must be specified in the placement settings of the ad group, then ads will not be shown on other sites. Let's go in order.

The subtleties of advertising on Instagram

Advertising on Instagram must comply with the same rules as on other Facebook sites. Here are a few more recommendations that the social network gives for setting up ads.

Use a separate image format for Stories ads

Don't use the same media for feed and story ads. Prepare a separate version of the creative with a 9:16 aspect ratio and use it for ads in stories. And for the ribbon, leave the standard rectangular or square image. Please note that if you promote the gallery through the Facebook interface, then the images in the feed can only be square.

Do not overuse text on creatives

Facebook has a negative attitude towards images, more than 20% of which are text. This can lead to the fact that ads will scroll more slowly and fewer users will see them. It is better to put the text in the description, and leave the image clean.

Consider the interface

If the image has text at the very bottom or top of the screen, the interface elements will overlap it: the profile icon on the top, the call to action on the bottom. To prevent this from happening, place them at a distance of 14-15% of the height from the top and bottom edges. If you are using an image that is 1600 pixels tall, back off 220-250 pixels.

Don't forget that the user can turn off the sound

If you decide to promote the video, don't forget that the user can view it without sound. If you plan to convey important thoughts with your voice, then duplicate them with subtitles so as not to lose such users.

Check your account statistics

See which of your posts get the most engagement: likes, comments, bookmarks. It is probably worth using such recordings for advertising - they resonate most with your audience.

Promote new products, services, and offers

Instagram promotion is a way to promote an upcoming sale, new product launch, or special offer. Advertising will help convey information about the new product to an audience that may be interested in it.

Don't delay when using video in Stories

A story is only 15 seconds long - don't put off showcasing your product or brand. If you use a long introduction, then some users may simply go to the next publications and not even figure out what you offer them.

Show, don't tell

Show users the product in action: how other people use it, what are the non-standard uses for it, tell how you work on it. Tell a story, not just describe the benefits of a product.

To summarize

Advertising on Instagram can be launched in two ways: through the Facebook advertising account and directly in the Instagram application.

Prepare your account for launching ads: add an avatar, description, website link, contacts.