Instagram today is used by well over 1 billion people worldwide every month and has a total global membership that surpasses a billion users as well. With numbers like these, the social media giant, a branch of the Facebook monster is an ideal landscape for engaging with your fans in almost any niche or brand space.
Two of the most notable and immediately accessible ways to spread visibility of your Instagram presence on the photo/video sharing platform are post boosting and Instagram advertising. In case you didn’t know, they’re quite different from each other in certain ways even though you have to pay for both.
Today we’re exploring Instagram boosted posts, breaking down its pros and cons, and helping you decide if it’s a worthwhile strategy for your brand.
The Difference between Boosting a Post vs. Instagram Ads
If you’ve used Instagram for any length of time you’ve almost certainly been presented with pushy little announcements from the website saying the following: “This post is doing better than 95% of recent posts. Promote it to reach a wider audience.”
This is the text with which Instagram offers you the option of boosting your post’s reach to a wider and more custom-selected audience. You can apply a boost to any of your posts whenever you like, but it comes with a price.
The difference between this and an actual ad campaign is mainly in the simplicity of one vs. the other. With post boosting, you’re instantly increasing display inside Instagram of a specific organic post you’ve made with only limited customization options.
To create ads directly from Instagram:
- Go to your profile.
- Tap Professional Dashboard.
- Tap Ad Tools.
- Tap Choose a Post.
- Choose a post or story that you’d like to promote.
With Instagram ads on the other hand, you enter the Facebook ads manager and use it to form multiple targeted ad campaign variants with specific long-term budgets. You can adjust these precisely again and again for different audiences based on numerous calibration and targeting options.
Although boosting posts offers simplicity, relying solely on this method can limit your marketing potential and miss opportunities available through Instagram ads or other channels.
Pros of Boosting your Instagram Posts
For simple, immediate attempts to get more traction for your Instagram content, boosted posts are the quickest and easiest way to go. To boost an Instagram post:
- Go to your profile.
- Tap the post you’d like to boost.
- Below the post’s image, tap Boost.
You can boost any of your posts at any time right away without all the hassle and complexities of going into the Facebook Ads Manager and creating an ad campaign. This is in fact the single biggest pro of post boosting, it’s sheer rapid simplicity.
When you boost your post, the Instagram platform offers a chance to quickly add in a call-to-action for viewers to learn more, shop your main page or contact you. This also makes it an ideal tool for very easily and quickly offering additional options to your audience.
To maximize the impact of your boosted posts, focus on selecting a clear goal, whether it’s increasing engagement, driving traffic, more impressions, etc.
Besides the above, boosted posts also let you optimize for a number of specific goals such as click-through to external website links, increasing likes, comments or clicks and shares, and getting audiences to message you for inquiries.
Additionally, boosted posts can be adjusted to reach either more of your existing audience or entirely new audiences based on many of the same interests or other categories that exist in Ads Manager. However, audience selection options are much more limited than in Ads Manager. Boosting existing Instagram posts and turning them into ads allows you to reach more people on Instagram who share the same passion as you and your business.
Cons of Boosting your Instagram Posts
The biggest limitation of post boosting is its simplicity. In certain contexts, this is a major benefit of this promotion tool but in others it can be pointless. If you want to do some heavy duty Instagram advertising for your serious business or promote to multiple audiences for different content and product types, boosted posts are very limited in scope.
Another major con of post boosting is that the original post itself can’t be changed. Yes, you can add in a little call-to-action (CTA) and specify what it is, but that’s about it. The content of the post can’t be tweaked and modified the way Facebook/Instagram ad content can be for multiple campaign variations.
Furthermore, when it comes to specific placement of boosted posts, your options are extremely limited. For one thing, you can only select one kind of audience at a time and secondly, Facebook reserves the right to automate much of the specific placement details. Ad campaigns give you many more options of your own here.
Finally, your price budget for post boosts can’t be adjusted much to speed up placement or for setting precise cost controls on cost per click or maximum CPM.
What Does it Mean to “Boost” an Instagram Post?
Boosting a post on Instagram is a simple yet powerful way to amplify the reach of your content. This feature allows businesses to take a regular Instagram post and transform it into a paid advertisement with just a few clicks, even if they don’t have an advanced advertising setup. By boosting a post, you’re essentially paying to have it shown to a larger audience beyond your current followers. This can be especially useful for increasing visibility, generating engagement, and driving traffic to your profile, website, or specific calls to action. Boosting is a straightforward introduction to Instagram advertising, designed to make it accessible for businesses of all sizes.
What are Paid Ads?
Paid ads go a step further than boosted posts by offering advertisers more customization and advanced targeting options. Unlike boosted posts, which are created from existing content, paid ads are built specifically as advertisements, allowing greater control over the format, placement, and objectives. These ads can run across both Facebook and Instagram, taking advantage of Meta’s vast advertising ecosystem. This enables businesses to access features like audience segmentation, detailed demographic targeting, A/B testing, and campaign optimization tools. Paid ads are an excellent choice for businesses looking to execute a strategic marketing plan, as they allow for precise delivery of content to potential customers who are most likely to engage.
