How to get more Instagram followers with Facebook Ads

Instagram is a fascinating platform that is attracting more and more users with an upward trend and close to one billion active users.

This photo sharing service went from being a novelty to becoming one of the main communication channels for many companies and brands. It is in this learning that all these companies find themselves with the same question. How to get more followers?

The challenge of getting followers on Instagram is theoretically less here than on other platforms, despite the fact that, unlike Facebook, it does not have specific ads that allow the user to “follow” an account. These Facebook ads instead of the "follow" button have a "Like" button on a Fan Page as a call to action.

Even though 100% was integrated into the Facebook advertising universe by Instagram, there is no ad format like the one mentioned above. However, there are multiple options to buy followers that claim to provide real users, but we know that this method is not going to bring you positive results in any way.

Of course, you don't have to pay to buy real Instagram followers and there are a few ways you can expand your community without ads. That is why I present you some tips that can help you when it comes to having a better audience:

• Create engaging, high-quality content that is Instagram friendly. The quality of photos and videos is enormously important, especially on this platform.
• Use hashtags according to your business and the interests of users, but please do not overdo it. The optimal ones are between 4 to 8 hashtags per post.
• Follow other accounts that interest you. Even a nice comment is always welcome and will help you get some exposure.
• Post new content regularly. An account that rarely posts anything is boring for users.
• Share your Instagram photos and videos on other social networks, such as Facebook or Twitter.

Either way we have to face the truth and that is that even the best content does not automatically propagate itself. That is why I present you the following format in which you can get more followers with a little guideline.

Get Instagram Followers with Facebook Ads Ads

As mentioned above, Instagram does not (yet) have a special ad format to increase the number of followers. However, the ads on Instagram are being powered by Facebook's ad manager.

The known possibility on Facebook to advertise a page with ads is absent on Instagram. However, Instagram allows users to direct ads to a website. And who said that your Instagram account is not a website?

In the next 2 steps, I will show you how to apply this procedure.

Step 1: Create a new campaign with the objective "Traffic"

First, open the Ads Manager on Facebook, create a new campaign and choose “Traffic” as the target.

Afterwards, you will be asked to insert the URL of your website. But beware! Don't add your website URL here. Instead, add your Instagram profile address as the destination URL.

Step 2: Define your campaign audience and budget

In the next step, determine the target audience of the campaign and define who you want to reach with your ads on Instagram. Instagram campaigns have all the Facebook targeting options available and these possibilities are impressive.

The following targeting options are particularly interesting for Instagram campaigns:

Custom audiences:

With Custom Audiences, you can reach people who have visited your website, subscribed to your newsletter, interacted with your Facebook page or are already using your application. Tip: Create a custom audience based on your website traffic and redirect website visitors to Instagram with your ads.

Similar audiences:

You can show ads to users similar to users who are part of your Custom Audiences using Lookalike Audiences. Create an ad set using a Lookalike Audience to check its performance.

Hope this technique helps you get better quality of followers. Tell me how they respond to your posts and what is the engagement rate in relation to the number of followers. This will be one of the great indicators that will tell you if you made an adequate choice of your audiences, but more importantly, of your budget.