How to advertise effectively on Instagram

With Instagram being one of the largest social media platforms it is an excellent way to promote your account. Instagram was only launched in 2010 and has already amassed over 700 million active users with 400+ million of them being active daily users. At the top of the list is Facebook with nearly 1.9 billion active users who acquired Instagram in 2012. They combine the user data of both services to make it easier to target individuals that are more likely to react positively to the ad campaign. Facebook capitalises on this advantage by tightly integrating the advertising capabilities of both services into a single advertising platform. This means that advertisements you run on Instagram can also be run on Facebook. 

Who is on Instagram?
- Under 18: 23%
- 18-29 years old: 55%
- 30-49 years old: 28%
- 50-64 years old: 4%

Advertisers have four different types of ads on Instagram:
- Photo ads: your standard Instagram post format
- Video ads: the same as above but with a video in place of a photo
- Carousel ads: a slideshow ad, which allows for multiple images
- Stories ads: these are Instagram's version of Snapchat ads seen at the top of the feed.

Why should you invest in advertising on Instagram?




1. Build Your Ads Around Your Overall Marketing Strategy
If you do not have a marketing strategy then prior to starting advertising I would highly suggest you create one. It will help in creating content for your target audience to engage with. To give you an idea of how to create a marketing plan you can check out Entrepreneur. The ads you run should support your brand image and show a call to action that feels natural and right for the brand.

Take into consideration how Instagram ads can work with or enhance your other social media campaigns. A great example of this is Mercedes-Benz launched a joint Instagram and Facebook campaign to advertise it's new SUV. By using both Instagram and Facebook it had a 580% increase in site visits thanks to the dual-channel approach.

2. Make The Images Central To The Campaign
Instagram ads that are effective rely solely on a single image to entice viewers to respond. The image that is used is central to the call to action and using a standout image will get more view attention. You should try using images that are specifically taken for Instagram campaigns. The images should be close crops, tight product shots and unusual angles that generate curiosity which is satisfied by one click.

3. Use Keywords And Hashtags
Hashtags are the keyword phrases that come after the # sign that assists users in sorting content according to their interests.

Instagram's users and advertisers can add hashtags to make their content appear in specific searches. They can tap the hashtag to bring themselves to a page showing all the images that have been tagged with the same hashtag. You should think carefully about what hashtags to use on your content to ensure that you are engaging with users who would have interest in your account.

You can add hashtags to both new and existing content on Instagram. If you haven't used hashtags on past content you can go back and edit the pictures to use them. You should consider using relevant keywords for your brand, product categories and user interests when adding hashtags to your content.

4. Use Your Social Media Statistics
You can see data on the ads you run to see what performs best for you as well as the days and times when your posts receive the most engagement. You can then use this data to build your Instagram ad campaign around the days and times when people are responding most favourably to your organic posts. You can also use these statistics to figure out what content is the most appealing to your audience on Instagram. You may find when comparing advertising statistics across your social media platforms that the best type of content may vary between platforms.

5. Test Your Ad Campaigns
You can learn a lot from the ads by testing. After establishing a benchmark ad, run the test ads against the benchmark then evaluate the results. See whether the offer, timing (day, hour, month), audience or content changes the engagement rate.

To keep it simple when testing you can test one advertisement against the other. You can use one ad with a known response rate as the benchmark and a new ad testing an element against it. You can then use the data to refresh the campaign and continue to test it until the engagement rate does not reach any higher.

How to gain more Instagram followers

Instagram has over 500 million active monthly users and growing with over 300 million of them using the platform on a daily basis. This shows that it is a great platform to grow your business or yourself as an influencer. 80% of its users are based outside of the US which means there is an opportunity for a large reach in advertising across the world.

If you're interested in engagement from your posts then Instagram is an excellent options with over 4.2 billion posts liked daily by users on the platform. 50% of Instagram users follow at least one business, 60% say that they learn about a product or service on the platform and 75% of Instagram users take action, such as visiting a website, after looking at an Instagram post.

A study on social media that was conducted in 2016 reviewed how the top 50 global brands market on social networks. They evaluated 11.8 million user interactions on 2,489 posts made by 249 branded profiles and collected data on how top brands use each social network, how many followers they have collected, how often they post and how users interact with their posts. The findings show that the average number of Instagram followers for a top brand is now over 1 million which is almost five times higher than what it was in 2015. The top brands also now post 4.9 times per week on Instagram which in an increase of more than 50% from 2015.

1. Using The Right Hashtags

Instagram users can use hashtags to discover content and accounts to follow. The right hashtag or a combination of hashtags can expose your account to a large and also targeted audiences. By making yourself more discoverable on Instagram you have a better chance of attracting new followers, gaining more likes and increasing engagement. Posts with at least one hashtag average 12.6% more engagement than those without.

To give you an idea of popular hashtags, this is the current top 20 hashtags on Instagram according to Websta:

1. #love (used 1,142,443,949 times)
2. #instagood (used 640,896,965 times)
3. #photooftheday (used 447,812,536 times)
4. #beautiful (used 141,762,866 times)
5. #fashion (used 413,048,166 times)
6. #happy (used 389,788,401 times)
7. #tbt (used 384,394,623 times)
8. #cute (used 382,816,002 times)
9. #likeforlike (used 356,773,573 times)
10. #followme (used 353,730,070 times)
11. #follow (used 338,775,550 times)
12. #picoftheday (used 335,551,447 times)
13. #me (used 330,976,962 times)
14. #summer (used 315,673,708 times)
15 #selfie (used 315,096,332 times)
16. #instadaily (used 290,298,946 times)
17. #friends (used 283,915,360 times)
18. #art (used 283,013,555 times)
19. #repost (used 270,685,116 times)
20. #girl (used 267,005,907 times)

Using popular tags like the ones listed above will likely attract additional engagement and likes, however, they will more than likely not lead to increased long-term engagement, new interested followers and if you're a business - new sales.

So what hashtags should you use? You can go on websites such as Tags For Likes which have the most popular hashtags for topics you can copy and paste into Instagram. Doing the appropriate research to ensure that you are using the most relevant hashtags that not only describe your brand but are also being searched for on Instagram will help people find your account that are interested in your content.

Keep in mind that Instagram only allows a maximum of 30 hashtags per post and that popular words will change over time. Make sure that you revisit searching for hashtag keywords every few months so that you are maximising your potential of bringing new followers to your account.

If you have been posting to Instagram for a while and have missed out on using hashtags on your posts... Don't stress! You can still go back and post a comment with your newfound hashtags and watch the likes and followers roll in.

2. Use The Right Filters

The Instagram community respond to certain photo filters more favourably than others. If you use these preferred filters that can have an impact on your engagement.

There was a study recently undertaken by TrackMaven to see how filters affected engagement on Instagram accounts. This study found that Mayfair, no filter and Inkwell drove the most interaction.

You can use websites such as Iconosquare to review the performance of your own account to understand what is and is not currently working for you.

3. Post At The Right Time

You should always consider the timing of your posts. If you have a business Instagram account you can view the analytics to understand when is peak engagement for your posts.

If you have a personal account you can use Iconosquare to get a detailed analysis of your posting history vs engagement. This report will also highlight the best times of the day and days of the week to post content. The dark circles in the graph below indicate when you usually post on social media and the grey circle shows when your followers have been interacting. The biggest light gray circle shows the best times for you to post.

You may want to consider using a scheduling program to schedule posts during your peak periods. There are programs such as ScheduGram (which is paid) which do this for you.

4. Steal Your Competitors Followers

One of the best ways to find and attract new followers is to seek out accounts that are similar to yours in content and engage with their audience. These people already show some level of interest in your content as they follow similar accounts. The more work you put into this method, the more followers and return engagement you will get back.

The three types of engagement on Instagram are:

- Follow a user

- Like a photo

- Comment on a photo

5. Sponsored Posts and Product Reviews

Taking advantage of influencer marketing on Instagram exposes your account to a wider audience. Unlike the above tactics this one isn't free but if done correctly, it is worth the money.

To begin you will need to make a list of Instagram accounts with a large following in your niche. For instance if you are in the travel industry, you will want to find travel blogger accounts with a large following.

One of the best ways to locate the accounts is use some of the keywords for your hashtags you uncovered in the beginning of this post. You can use Webstagram to search for some of the keywords. Not only will it show you the related keywords but it will also show you the top Instagram accounts that feature those keywords.

Things to look for in the profiles:

- Large following (at least 20,000 followers)

- An email address in the profile

- A bonus if you look at their content and it looks like they already do sponsored posts.

If the profile has an email address then that usually indicates they are open to sponsored posts. You will need to email them to ask them their sponsored post pricing. The rate will increase with the more followers they have.

How doyoutravel and gypsea_lust make a six figure salary by travelling

24 year old Lauren Bullen (gypsea_lust) and partner 26 year old Jack Bullen (doyoutravel) get paid a six figure salary to travel the world in luxury whilst creating content for brands. They have only been together a year and have over 4.6 million followers between them.

Lauren moved from the Gold Coast to Cairns in Northern Queensland where she continued being a self-taught photographer alongside her full-time dental assisting job. When she initially moved she only had around 2,000 followers on Instagram which grew as she continued to share content. When she had around 16,000 followers she secured her first photography job with the local tourism board to be filmed whilst exploring the region and sharing it on her Instagram account. She was further inspired to continue her photography after chatting to other influencers who shared what they did and how they made money. After gradually building up her influencing jobs until it wasn't feasible for her to continue working as a dental assistant she then quit to pursue photography full time.

"It was getting busy with the travel jobs - some of those might take a week or two to go off to the destination and shoot - so every month I was literally just taking half the month off to do a different job. Brands started contacting me and I was making good money from it, so I wanted to give myself the flexibility and be available to do it."

A quiet spot in the desert with my favourite girl ☽

A post shared by JACK MORRIS (@doyoutravel) on Dec 19, 2016 at 5:30am PST

Jack's journey into a social media career was different. He left school at 17 and was employed as a carpet cleaner. When he hit 22, he began to get fed up so he saved enough money to buy a one-way ticket to Bangkok to go backpacking.

"I had no plan and hardly any money. I had just my first night booked in a hostel" Jack told Cosmopolitan.

After a few months Jack's savings started to run out and he realised he'd better find a way of making money or he'd have to go back home to his carpet cleaning job. He decided to use Instagram that was still fairly new as a little DIY business venture.

We've Launched ⚡️ You've all been asking- so here they are, all our Lightroom presets are now available for sale, links in my bio! This was edited with the M1 preset in the Morocco Collection 🍉 #doyoutravelXgypsealust

A post shared by LAUREN BULLEN (@gypsea_lust) on Aug 14, 2017 at 6:48am PDT

"Instead of trying to grow myself on Instagram, I tried to grow niche accounts which reposted images; I had one for animals, fashions, cars - all sorts of things like that - and they grew pretty fast. It was literally just finding content throughout the Instagram community, reposting certain niches on certain accounts, and then monetising by contacting brands in that niche and asking if they wanted to advertise on the accounts."

After two years Jack's advertising business was making quite a bit of money however that meant he wasn't making the most of his travelling experience. "I just felt like I may as well have been at home doing it in my room. I was spending so much time on my phone and my laptop, searching for wifi all day. I wasn't really doing what I set out to do in the first place."

Babe, you look so cool 👀 On top of the Kotor fort ☨ @gomontenegro | @budva.travel #visitbudva #gomontenegro

A post shared by JACK MORRIS (@doyoutravel) on Jun 25, 2017 at 10:39am PDT

Jack then sold all except one of his niche Instagram accounts which had several hundred of thousands of followers combined then lived off that money while continuing to explore the world for a further year. Whilst exploring he started to post photographs to his own personal Instagram account which grew rapidly then he started to get approached by brands and tourist boards wanting to work with him.

It was on one of these jobs in Fiji where Jack and Lauren met. "We were both doing the same thing, and he asked me if I wanted to come to Bali and hang out after the Fiji job, which I thought would be fun. We could just keep doing what we were doing, taking pictures and creating content and stuff."

Whilst both calling Bali home, Jack and Lauren travelled around together and both of their Instagram accounts blew up. They travelled to exotic locations such as Sri Lanka and the Maldives and started posting photos together.

"As soon as we started posting photos together brands would contact us much more frequently than they would when we were travelling by ourselves. I think they probably saw more value in a couple because it's a target audience for most in the travel industry" said Jack.

.. & the best part is.. the best is still to come..🌜🌛

A post shared by LAUREN BULLEN (@gypsea_lust) on Aug 9, 2017 at 6:45am PDT

This clearly paid off as they will not do a single post for less than USD$3000. The most Jack has received from one post is USD$9,000 and the most Lauren has ever received from one post is USD$7,500.

"I did a job for a phone company where I flew out for three days; there were two days filming and then I had to do five photos on Instagram, and that was $35,000" says Jack, which gives you a clear idea of how they are making a six figure salary whilst travelling and they aren't even charging top-level. "We've turned up to jobs before that we've charged thousands for, and we've got there and they've been like, 'your rates are so low'."

Dream world ➳☽

A post shared by JACK MORRIS (@doyoutravel) on Jun 6, 2017 at 5:04am PDT

As far as editing and taking the photos goes they "edit photos in a professional way using Adobe programmes. It might look quite planned out sometimes, but we're just taking photos of what we're doing anyway. Sometimes it's a job and we'll be told to take photos of things, but most of the time it's pretty chilled. Everything that we take and put on Instagram is real life" says Jack.

"People follow us because they enjoy our content, so when we post about a brand, location, or whatever it is we're being paid for, our followers trust it more than when they see a random advert in a magazine. Since we only work with brands we personally like or truly believe in, it's authentic. We would never promote something we don't agree with just for money" they add.

Streets are pretty, but I can't stop looking at you 👀

A post shared by LAUREN BULLEN (@gypsea_lust) on Jul 16, 2017 at 4:53am PDT

The advice they have for anyone wanting to follow in their footsteps; be consistent in your content, keep it to a high standard, find your style or niche and stick to it, don't copy what's already out there, think about the aesthetic of your profile and your grid, try hard and don't be a try hard, and consider collaborating with other like-minded people - their main bit of advice: have fun.

"Both of us started out doing this purely by having fun, doing what we want to do," Jack says. "And I think that really resonates," adds Lauren.

"We never expected to be offered this kind of money for simply following our passions and doing what we love. We both feel so lucky. It still doesn't feel like real life sometimes" the couple adds. You bet it doesn't with them living what others would consider the dream life.

Ways that social media has transformed tourism marketing

The increase in the popularity in social media has meant that many companies have changed the way they communicate and market to their target demographics. Whether it is from the way travellers research potential destinations or the activities they could participate in when they arrive, social media has introduced new ways to influence consumers to make purchasing decisions.

1. Travel research reformed
89% millennials plan travel activities based on content posted by their peers online. From social sharing sites such as Facebook and Instagram to crowd-sourced review sites such as Trip Advisor and Yelp, anyone can browse the Internet for new inspiration for travel and research further into reviews on places/companies to make informed decisions. They can easily find online other travellers photos, ratings, check in's, blog posts and more. The easy-to-attain real guest reviews gives a viewpoint of the destination other than that of the brand. As social media is so accessible and influential it can either put off potential guests or inspire them to book.

2. Rise in social sharing
Over 97% of millennials share photos and videos of their travels online which can serve to inspire other potential guests. People have always loved sharing photos and videos of their travels (let's not forget the days before social media where everyone would gather around the photo album of blurry photos) and social media has helped to facilitate and grow peoples ability to share travel experiences with a larger audience than ever before. This hasn't gone unnoticed with many companies e.g. venues using real guests wedding photographs instead of staged professional photographs to market their venues.

3. Enhanced customer service
As majority of brands will have a social media presence that can be used to become aware of and when needed to provide help to unsatisfied or confused customers. Companies that respond to complaints in a sincere and genuine manner will develop a strong reputation among current and potential customers. Companies that respond with humour give the brand a much needed positive image in the wake of what could be a negative situation. More than half of the Twitter users expect a response when contacting a brand and if they are reaching out with a complaint then it's more than 75%. When enquiries and complaints are responded to it helps to humanise a brand and shows current and prospective customers that they are valued.

A tough gig in the travel industry would be managing the social media accounts for airlines more specifically budget airlines like Jetstar and Tiger. They receive more negative feedback than positive feedback on their pages but it's good to see that customers still give credit for where it is deserved for their positive experiences with the airlines. 

4. Reshaping travel agencies
The availability of information and the ease of self-service booking have forced travel agencies to adapt to a more digital environment. Travel agencies themselves are not obsolete as they are still responsible for 55% of all airline bookings, 77% of cruise bookings and 73% of package bookings. Many agencies since the introduction of social media have shifted their focus from in-person/phone experiences to online experiences as they adapt to market trends and new technology. Agents that work with millennials should consider the generations preference for experience over materials. This means that instead of up-selling them on flight upgrades they should consider selling unique experiences that are guaranteed to create a lasting memory or look great on social media. Travel agencies may struggle to remain relevant as self-booking options increase their one selling point is that many travellers still prefer the personal touch and ease of someone else assisting to plan their perfect holiday.

5. Changing loyalty programs
More than 25% of millennials that participate in loyalty programs are very likely to post about a brand in exchange for loyalty points. Most businesses know that acquiring new customers is far more expensive and harder than just retaining existing ones. A core piece of the travel business model is loyalty programs and social media has had a large part of how hotel loyalty programs are constructed. A lot of people know that their opinions that they share with their own networks have a large influence and because of this they feel entitled to compensation for their positive word-of-mouth marketing they do for a brand. With the availability of social media networks that allow people to track hashtags and mentions across channels it is easier for brands to discover passionate guests and to reward them accordingly. By curating positive reviews and encouraging social shares, brands can use social media to build positive awareness for their brands, increase brand loyalty and show how much their brand has to offer.

What is social media?

Until you've really thought about it you don't realise how much social media influences your life. Most people have at least one social media account (whether it's Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat etc.) that they use for many different reasons such as to keep up to date with family or friends, stalk their favourite celebrities or share their personal moments.

Some fun facts to show how much social media has an impact on us:

- Time to reach 50 million users:

• Radio: 38 years
• TV: 13 years
• Internet: 4 years
• Facebook: 100 million users in under 9 months

- Social media is the number 1 online activity

- One in six couples married in 2013 met on a social media site

- 94% of companies used LinkedIn as their primary recruiting tool

- 4 billion pieces of information are shared daily on Facebook

eMarketer has referenced research from Redshift Research that shows:

Approximately one-fifth of leisure travellers worldwide turn to social media platforms for inspiration within different categories of their travel planning including:

As for which social media platform specifically is most used by traveller, Facebook came in first as per the same research.

This blog will explore how the introduction of social media has had an impact on the travel industry. Whether it's from how they advertise or how social media influencers use social media to get free or discounted travel I will try to cover as many avenues as I can.