Why You Should Consider Instagram Advertising (Ads)?
You might have used and invested in many digital marketing methods to accomplish your business goals, but could not see any satisfactory return on that investment?
The major drawcard of using Instagram Ads as a marketing strategy is its ability to give a business a wider, and meaningful exposure. Similar with the other types of advertisements, throwing some money behind a post will lead to more exposure for your brand, as well as more control over who can see your post. You can target specific genders, age ranges, locations, interests, behaviors, and more. Therefore, you are showing ads only to your direct list of leads.
Unlike Twitter, where marketers need to be creative in how they write and what they write, Instagram does not require a lot of words. All you need to do is design a visually attractive picture or video that supports the style of your message. Images speak louder than words!
The statistics below prove just how essential Instagram Ads is to your business and more importantly, HOW you can use these statistics to your ADVANTAGE?
Active Users
With more than 1 billion active users, it comes as no surprise that Instagram is the second most engaged social network after Facebook. Not convinced by this number?
Well, According to a recent study by Kantar TNS, Malaysia has the highest number of Instagram users in the Asia Pacific with a 73% penetration figure and the statistics indicate that it’s not going to change anytime soon.
In simple words, it has become a huge and diverse online community with unlimited marketing potential.
Of course, Facebook has more active users than Instagram. However, these numbers may not be the first thing to consider when advertising a business, especially when you are in a niche industry. If you want to successfully promote your business, you should look first at the relevant data.
The following data could be an indicator that Instagram is a great place to launch a new brand on social and get noticed.
Age & Gender
Compared to Facebook, Instagram is a network of younger users. According to Statista, more than half of the Malaysian Instagram user population is younger than 35 years old. The single most popular age range is users between the ages of 25-34, followed by users between the ages of 18-24.
You want to get your ads in front of the right people. With these powerful demographic data, you can serve up ads to the appropriate parties. For instance, if you are in a yoga business targeting on women between the ages of 25-30, you know that Instagram is the right place for you to be.
Even if your target audience does not include this demographic, you still should not dismiss the Instagram as a useless opportunity. As Instagram continues to grow its popularity, more and more adults over 34 will likely be hopping on the Instagram bandwagon. Also, if your major customers are over 65, you can always target at the 0.4% directly.
Time Spent on Instagram
Based on an interesting statistic from Oberlo, Instagram users spend almost as much time on the app as Facebook users. They browse for an average of 53 minutes per day versus Facebook’s 58 minutes per day.
People spend a lot of time on Instagram, so they do not mind scrolling through photos of products they are interested in. This data matters because the more time people spend in the app, the more advertisements they see and the more likely they will be interested in your business.
Impact On Buyers
Survey shows that: After seeing a product or service on Instagram, among the users, 79% searched for more information, 37% visited the retail store and 46% has in fact made purchases!
Buyers are looking for creativity through Instagram or researching the products before they make the final decision. It is all these steps along the way where you can influence buyers using Instagram. Based on this data, Instagram Ads has proven to be a sales channel for businesses to pull consumers in.
To fully take advantage of advertising on Instagram, add call-to-action links directly in the ads that you run. This will help grow brand exposure, website traffic, generate new leads, and move current leads down the funnel and hopefully towards converting
Engagement Rate
engaging content on Instagram can help you reach a new audience and eventually bring new customers to the table! As shown the average Instagram Engagement Rate across all industries has reached 1.22%. Among all, the industries with the highest engagement rates include Higher Education at 3.57%, Sports Teams at 2.33% and Nonprofits at 1.75%.
While we understand that Instagram engagement is important for businesses, the question remains about what Instagram engagement actually is and how to increase your engagement rates.
Engagement can be broadly described as the sum of the actions that Instagram users can take when interacting with your content. This includes liking your content, commenting under your posts, sharing your posts, reacting to your stories and more.
Wondering why some brands have higher engagement rates than other similar brands? Here are some useful tips:
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Hashtags – With the right selection of hashtags, you will get more users visiting your content and interacting with your profile. Try to use less popular hashtags, in this way it will be easier to rank higher in the hashtag browser. -
Comment back – A comment can be as little as a single emoji. Your fans will feel better knowing that you read their feedback. You can also ask your fans questions inside a comment thread, start conversations, which will in turn further boost your engagement rates. -
Photos – Since Instagram is such a visual platform, text ads are not a thing here. Rather you need an image, set of images, or video (which can be accompanied by text) to reach your audience with Instagram ads.
Conclusion
We are hoping that the above 5 statistics have helped explain how Instagram Ads can be a powerful marketing tool. As a business, you should try to leverage this huge potential to increase your reach to your target audience in a cost-effective way.
More information on Instagram Ads, visit: Instagram Marketing
