My journey sponsoring a post on my brand’s Instagram account was definitely unexpected. When approaching the project, I only saw three possible endings:
- My post getting a few likes and maybe even gaining some followers
- My post absolutely blowing up and it easily becoming the most liked post on Instagram ever (super realistic right??)
- My post absolutely bombing and only receiving two likes, one of them being from my own, personal account
Surprisingly none of those outcomes came to fruition. But, in order to understand the ending we first have to look at said post and all of the choices I made while promoting it.
I studied my insights and looked at past successful posts when deciding what type of post I was going to promote.
My best performing post is a screenshot of a funny tweet with captions, a casual caption and specific hashtags that all helped the post to perform well.
I learned from my research about promoted posts on Instagram that carousel posts typically perform very well.
With the lessons learned from my well performing post and the research done I decided to combine these ideas and promote a carousel post that follows a similar style to the previous post.
I liked the idea that this post’s style followed the style of my previous successful posts but in a carousel setting. Since it would be promoted, many people would hopefully see the post. Because of the carousel style, it allowed any viewer of the post to be able to relate to at least one meme which would hopefully bring them to engage with the post and maybe even follow my account.
I wanted to look at my insights to choose my audience but unfortunately you have to have at least 100 followers to be able to see audience insights – maybe someday..
I decided to choose big, southern cities for my locations. I chose Dallas, Atlanta, Nashville, Memphis, Birmingham, Charlotte, Little Rock and New Orleans.
The interests I chose were: Enneagram of Personality, Personality Quiz, Funny Page, Personality and Meme or Personality type. I found the interests part of the promotions to be pretty hard to navigate and would have liked to include more, but struggled to find interests I thought my target audience would genuinely be interested in.
Finally, I decided to make my target female 22 to 35 year olds.
All these decisions were based on knowledge I had about the typical audience of enneagram content, which is generally Christian, female millennials.
I threw $20 at the post and hoped for the best…
So, after all the explanation, aren’t you curious what my results will be?
You and me both.
A few hours after submitting my post to be promoted, I saw this notification along side my likes and comments.
I didn’t know much about Instagram promotions, but I did not think this seemed like a good sign.
Upon further investigation into this mysterious red arrowed alert I was taken to this page with a little more information.
I was immediately confused how some silly, niche memes could have possibly broken Instagram’s policies or standards.
I decided this could only be because of 2 things…
- Instagram has huge beef with Twitter and is discriminating against a post with screen shotted Tweets..
- Instagram is scared of how successful this post would have been if promoted
So, even though those are both very legit reasons why Instagram would disable my account from advertising, somehow it turned out to be neither of those.
First I decided I should look into what are Instagram’s promotion policies are.
For the most part, it’s about what you would expect. You cannot advertise posts that promote illegal products, tobacco products, drugs, weapons or adult content. You also cannot promote posts that may shock or scare viewers.
Maybe my post was so funny it could scare viewers with how much they would laugh?
Anyways . . .
None of Instagram’s policies of what cannot be promoted apply at all to my post.
My next question was if other people had had this problem, and with more research I found that they did.
Instagram actually has had many issues with blocking promotions or even wrongly disabling accounts. Because of these issues, they were forced to add the “Request a Review” button to the alert in February of 2020.
Previously, Instagram users had many issues with fixing disabled promotions and found it very difficult and tedious to right the wrong.
I decided to “Request a Review” hoping this would solve my issues.
I entered my email and wrote about why I believed Instagram had made a mistake. I said I had not intentionally broken any rules or guidelines. I also wrote about how, to my knowledge, this specific posts and all I had previously posted did not go against any of their guidelines.
To my confusion, I submitted the review and it just took me back to the original screen stating my promotion abilities were disabled. It gave me no indication my review had gone through and no knowledge about if anything would or could be done to mend this error.
I checked my email and had received nothing from Instagram. At this point, I felt my dream of social media domination slipping through my fingers.
Not only could I not promote my intended post, but I could not promote any posts of mine ever.
This definitely took away some of my excitement about Instagram and my brand’s previous success on the platform.
I then decided to research even more and turn this project into an “Instagram Sponsored Post Gone Wrong” and in the process I think I learned more about Instagram than I would have if I had 0 issues.
It had never occurred to me that my post might not be able to be sponsored at all. I honestly didn’t even know that Instagram had to review my sponsored post to begin with.
I learned all about the many, many types of post that can not be promoted on Instagram -surprisingly silly memes about the Enneagram were not on the list.
And then, when all hope seemed lost, I finally received an email from Instagram.
“Hi Enneagram Lol Memes,
We reviewed the business account again and determined that access to advertising was incorrectly disabled. Any of its Ad accounts or Ads that were affected will return to their previous status. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Thanks, The Facebook Business Team”
They really know how to pick their moments..
By the time I received this email I had already started working on this project with the angle of a failed sponsored post and would not have enough time to truly see the effects of promoting the original post.
While I was frustrated that Instagram disabled my advertising and then “un-disabled” it, it actually taught me a valuable lesson.
I am now aware of the fact that it can be a real outcome on a sponsored post, even if you do everything right. And I now know that generally, when you request a review the disabling action can be reversed.
These are the sort of lessons that will help me in my future career. I have now gained the understanding of how to sponsor a post along with all the steps that go into it, how to follow Instagram’s promotion guidelines and what to do if Instagram incorrectly disables promoted posting abilities.
While this project did not bring my page insane notoriety like we all expected, I will take these lessons learned and maybe someday they will help me to beat not only America’s royalty, The Kardashians/Jenners, but the world’s king, The Instagram Egg.
Nettie Taylor's Blog IMC 