Instagram has taken the world by storm over the past couple of years. In the US alone, there are over 150 million monthly active users of the social media platform, and this number continues to increase every year as new people come online and old users stick around. If you’re an entrepreneur, you should consider adding Instagram to your marketing strategies as it can increase brand awareness and engagement with your customers. 

You might think of Instagram as a social media platform where people go to share pictures of their food, selfies, and travel photos—and you wouldn’t be totally wrong. But there’s more to Instagram than meets the eye. In fact, it can be an incredibly powerful advertising platform if you know how to use it correctly, and in this article, we’ll show you how to do just that.

What is an Instagram Ad?

An ad on Instagram is a post that you’ve paid to have placed in someone’s feed. A sponsored post (or sponsored story) can include pretty much anything from a text-only shoutout to an image or video and is run through Facebook or its ad partners. If you’re running an ad, it will be labeled as such, with Sponsored by [Your Company Name] appearing below your handle at the top of your post. Clicking on that label will take users to your business page, where they can learn more about your products and services.

Know the Demographics of Your Target Audience

In order to create a successful campaign, you need to know your target audience. If your target audience is 18-35 year old females, then you need to make sure you’re reaching them. When setting up your campaign be sure to include hashtags that are popular in your demographic such as #fitness or #traveling or even just #girlslovebooty.

Consider Influencers

Influencers are people who have a strong following on social media—people like bloggers, social media personalities, and others. You can approach these folks with your product or service and get them to promote it to their audience. This is one of the most effective (and relatively inexpensive) ways to get more business.

Create Engaging Copy

Whether you’re posting a picture or a video, your content will be far more effective if it’s exciting. Make sure to choose words that excite and inspire—as well as trigger an emotional response from your audience. After all, your marketing won’t be successful if no one is interacting with it. Look at each of your posts before putting them up and make sure they have a clear call-to-action so you can track engagement after it goes live.

With Instagram’s recent changes to its ad platform, more small businesses are turning to Instagram advertising to grow their business and reach new customers. If you want to know how to run an effective Instagram ad campaign that actually works, here are five tips to get you started