Using Social Media to Increase Brand Awareness in 2020: Instagram Ads vs Social Media Influencers

Over the past few years, it has become more difficult to gain traction with new content on Instagram as a start up entrepreneur. Back in 2012, Hashtags alone would drive content into the reach of unique audiences for free and return pretty decent results just from posting frequently. As more Influencers and Entrepreneurs have started to use social media to increase brand awareness, Instagram developers have programmed the algorithm to work in favor of accounts that are willing to spend a significant amount of money to promote content. Instagram ads were introduced to the platform creating excitement, especially for people who understand the power of advertisement operations engineering. However, the algorithmic change has an immediate impact on the effectiveness of hashtags and users who don’t have a lot of money to spend on advertisement. it can become depressing to witness $20 worth of US targeted Instagram advertisement only obtain about 5,000 views from people who may not be interested in your content at all.

Here are some reasons why paying influential social accounts to share your content can be more effective and lucrative than Instagram paid advertisement.

1. Higher Estimated Reach per Dollar Spent. On average, $5 of ad spend in the US will reach about $1000 people. For $20, some Influencers with over 100,000 followers will promote your content by sharing to their story or posting to their page for a given amount of time. There are also entrepreneurs on fiverr.com that will market your content to larger audiences than $5 will obtain with Instagram paid advertisement AKA Sponsored Ads. Experts suggest spending at least $1000 on platform advertisement to get reliable data to scale from. For someone starting with a smaller budget, this could be a determining factor.

2. Examine Your Target Audience for Free. With paid advertisement, you have to spend money to collect data which you can use to test finding your niche. Once you've developed a system that converts, you can scale your campaign. Needless to say, this can become very expensive, especially when not monitored and optimized appropriately. By paying social media influencers instead, you get to choose your audience without spending a dime. Examine the accounts following and engaging on the posts of the influencer to help with determining the right pick. Your audience will be based on the crowd of the engagements on the influencers profile which you can observe at will on public profiles.

3. Calculate Engagement Rates. Observe the number of followers divided by the average number of likes and/or comments on posts to determine engagement rates. The quality of engagement can be identified this way as well. You can also use tools like hype-auditor to verify the legitimacy of the followers, engagement rates, and new follower rates. It’s all a numbers game. Being able to spend less and receive more is ideal for anyone, regardless of budget. The benefit of doing this is having quality control. You can use engagement rates to determine how much traffic you will be able to generate based on the promotional fee negotiated.

4. Predict Campaign Results More Effectively. You can observe exactly who’s following and engaging with profiles by observing the posts and followers of the accounts that interest you. You can also gauge how much traffic a page generates by watching it over a period of time and paying attention to the engagements on posts and the new follower rate. With paid platform advertisement, you have no clue really who’s seeing your content. The analytics show certain variables like age, device, etc., but never account names.

5. Gain Brand Recognition by Interacting with Top Influencers. We're all human right? Use direct messaging. Most people respond to genuine messages if they have time. Once you’ve got their attention with $$$ and a proposal. The next step for them is usually to check out your content. They still have a brand to protect and more than likely will not post anything that would deter it. Influencers will want to see what makes your brand so special and may become interested in your brand once introduced to it. This could lead to greater business opportunities and relationships.

More people are starting to share their success from dealing with people vs. programs. Your content may not be a good match for any influencer. Making sure it fits to the content they already share in is key. Otherwise, you could still potentially waste money, especially if you are selling products. What are some of your experiences from dealing with influencers vs paid platform advertisement? Millionaire John Crestani has Free Training on how to earn a 6-figure income online using social platforms. Click HERE for access.

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