Is it Worth “Boosting Posts” on Instagram? 

I had always seen those prompts that say, “This post is performing better than 90% of your previous posts.  Click here to boost it to show more people.”  Have you seen those, too? 

I decided to experiment with this and put some money behind it to see if it’s actually effective or not. 

The results were a little bit surprising… but not too surprising. 

Here’s the first photo I boosted:

I put $30 behind this post.  It’s a cute one of my wife eating an ice cream cone and the caption was a corny joke about how Reese Witherspoon eats her ice cream (with her spoon) get it….?  😉

There was no call to action in the caption.  The prompt on the ad was “view this Instagram profile”. 

As you can see, 23 people clicked to view my profile.  If I was the one in the photo, I promise it would have been even fewer people that would have viewed it. 

This is not 23 new followers… this is 23 people visited my profile.  I don’t believe I received any new followers from this post. 

Was this post a success?  If my goal was to gain followers, which it was, then no – not a success. 

I spent $50 on the next promotion.  The goal here was to get people to visit my profile so they’d watch my Instagram Story.  The particular story I wanted them to watch is the Story that’s in my profile Highlights where I share about my professional background and what I do now for work – help people learn how to do social media the right way. 

The results of this promotion were much more effective!  127 profile visits.  Assuming every one of those people watched at least the first post on my Instagram Story, that’s not bad, right? 

Considering the first post has over 4500 views, it’s not great.  I spent 50 dollars to get a very small percentage of the views on that story.  Did any of these turn into paying Clients for me?  I’m not sure and unfortunately there is no way to track that.  Bummer! 

Do I consider this promotion a success?  No – $50 is a lot of money for 127 views when you consider how many views that story is at on its own.  The number could’ve been worse, but I don’t think it converted into many followers or sales for me. 

The most recent post I boosted was this one here:

Another $50 – this time I got 21 clicks to visit my website.  I was pushing a free guide my wife and I were giving away.  I got 21 clicks!  That is more than $2 per click.  Not a horrible metric if you’re familiar with how much people spend for targeted clicks on Facebook ads.  Was this a success? 

In all honesty, I did not think this promotion was going to do well!  I was anticipating it to tank.  I don’t think that it did, though.  I’d say this third promotion was a success.  Happy I got 21 people over to my site to claim their free guide.  What did I get in return?  Their email addresses. 

To wrap up my thoughts on whether or not you should promote posts on Instagram, I think we need to look at the purpose of your promotion/post.  If you are wanting to get people to simply visit your profile, the best way to get people over there is not by spending tons of money on boosting posts.  Save your money, make more content, gain more followers.  If, however, you have a very specific purpose for why you want people to go to your website or something such as this, the promotion may be fruitful.  I am happy I got that many clicks.  Is it still expensive to spend $50 to potentially gain 21 email addresses?  Yes, it is.  Would I do it again?  I would consider it – as long as I have something of great value for the people who will see the promotion. 

Two more things: We made a guide (this is a revised version from the one I’ve previously given out and there are worksheets to go with it now… super cool and very valuable!)  to help you discover three reasons your social media isn’t growing, and what to do about it.  The guide was written by my wife and I and it’s FREE!  If you want it, click this link here and enter your email, then download.  Last thing: Make sure you’re keeping up with me on my Instagram @mikelemieux.  My wife Ashley (@theshineproject on Instagram) and I have a very special and exciting announcement coming up in the next few days and you won’t want to miss it!