How to Get Your Instagram Posts Seen: The £3 Strategy That Actually Works

Nov 12

What's this episode of the lionhearted ceo podcast about?

Ready to get your Instagram posts seen by the followers who actually need to see them? In this episode, I'm showing you exactly how to reach 80% of your followers (instead of the usual 20%) using strategic £3/day ads.

Here's what we're covering:

Why hoping your important posts will "get seen" isn't a strategy (and the simple £3/day fix that changes everything)
The exact campaign setup that gets your content in front of YOUR followers when it actually matters
How to choose which posts to amplify for maximum impact (because not every post needs a visibility boost!)
My proven framework for timing your content amplification perfectly

Plus, I'm sharing something special - a complete guide that walks you through my engagement ad strategy step by step. AND, if you're ready to take action, I'll tell you about my new £9 mini-course that shows you exactly how to implement everything we discuss.

This episode is perfect for ambitious business owners who are tired of watching their best content disappear into the void. Whether you're launching a new offer, sharing client wins, or dropping your best tips - you need to know your followers will actually see it!

Ready to make sure your important posts get seen by the people who followed you for a reason? Grab your coffee (or tea if you're fancy like that), and let's turn £3/day into maximum reach for the content that matters most!

CLICK HERE to access the free STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE: How to Get Your Instagram Posts Seen: The £3 Strategy That Actually Works.

CLICK HERE to get started with ‘easy engagement ads’ now!

Hi! I’m your host Sophie Griffiths, a Meta ads expert and business growth strategist.

The LionHearted CEO podcast is designed for impatiently ambitious women who are ready to scale and often juggling motherhood alongside their thriving online businesses in coaching, course creation, or service-based business.

If you enjoy the podcast, here are some ways you can continue the conversation:

Social:

Love Instagram? Click here to watch a video I made on the Warm audience trap (hint, it's something almost every client struggles with!)More of a LinkedIn fan? I'm there too! Come and follow me here: Sophie Griffiths

Free Resource:

Ready to grow an audience of people who WANT you to sell to them? Radical idea I know, but it shouldn’t be! Click here to get access to my step by step guide to using simple, effective ads to build & nurture a community of superfans,

Work together:

Ready to build an audience of superfans who are excited and ready to buy from you?
Whether you are just starting with Meta (Facebook & Instagram) Ads, you have dabbled but want to build your confidence with your first funnel, or you're already killing it and you're ready for fast growth - I can help! Click here to choose the best option for you

Got questions?

DM me on Insta or LinkedIn
Email me here: hello@sophiegriffiths.co

Thank You for Listening!

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Read the transcript:

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors.

[00:00:00] Hello and a big welcome to Lionhearted CEO, the podcast for unapologetically, impatiently ambitious women who know they want to stop being the bottleneck in their business and become the Lionhearted CEO they know they are meant to be. I'm Sophie Griffiths, a tea enthusiast, marketing and Metis ad specialist and firm believer.

The chocolate should never be kept in the fridge. Join me every Tuesday for bold, imperfect, fun approach to marketing and scaling your business without burning out every few months. We'll dive into practical strategies and have inspirational conversations that will support you to create a thriving, sustainable business that brings you joy as well as financial freedom.

Okay, let's jump in. Hello. So today we are jumping into a more practical episode. I am going to be talking you through engagement ads to show your current Instagram followers your content. Now, the reason why I want to share this is because it's [00:01:00] something that I talk to my clients quite a lot about. often with ads, we are really super focused on getting new people into our world. Totally understandable. We want to grow our email list. We want to grow our Instagram, followers. Absolutely, those campaigns are ones that I talk about time and time again and we'll continue to talk about because ads are an incredible way to reach new people. however, one of the brilliant ways that we can use ads for a really low cost. is to show your Instagram content, which, let's face it, takes quite a lot of time and effort to create, and actually get it in front of your followers. I think one of the stats that I read is that your content reaches on average, 20 percent or under of your current followers.

What if you could use ads to reach over 80 percent of your followers? that would make a huge difference, right? Even if you could just show the people who are already in your world, who are already following you, who already know that they're interested in what you offer. if you could create some new posts or use what you've already got and strategically [00:02:00] show them those posts, how much of a difference would it make knowing that people were actually going to see your content? So in today's episode, I am going to talk you through some of the key things you need to think about, with this type of campaign.

And I'm also going to share something very, very exciting later on in the episode I'm going to be sharing how you can get hold of a brand new resource that I have to show you how to set these ads up Literally step by step. So let's jump in. So first of all, let's start with the recipe if you like. I've often talked before about these kind of recipes that I create for myself and my clients to keep things really, really simple. And the key to a really great ads recipe, is knowing exactly what you're trying to bake, exactly what ingredients you need, and exactly what step by step process you're going to follow to actually get this outcome. So I'm going to take you through this recipe to start with. So let's start with the objective. We're going to start with an engagement objective. and the reason for this is that we want to [00:03:00] ask, Facebook to find people who are likely to engage.

Now that might just be reading the post, it might be liking it, it might be commenting, it might be sharing, it literally might be clicking the read more link, so that they can read the entire, Caption, you might not get a huge amount of engagement and you know what, that sometimes that's okay. Sometimes it works really, really well and you do get loads of engagement, but often it's more a case of just putting your posts in front of people, reminding them that you're there.

Reminding them actually, oh, oh, I really like that post. I'm going to go click on their bio. I'm going to see what else they're talking about. Just being front of mind, with people who are already in your world can make such a huge difference day to day. So that when you come to launch something and they see your name in their inbox, they're like, Oh yeah, I'm interested in what she wants to say.

So yes, There are some metrics we can look at. But the reality is this is more about just staying front of mind, and getting in front of your current followers all the time. So we're going to use the engagement post because we want people [00:04:00] who are likely to engage with the post. I'm going to use post engagement as the subcategory.

And that's on the ad set level. Now the next thing is, who are we going to show this to? We want to show this to people who are already in our world, so are already following us on Instagram, So we want to create something called a custom audience. when you are on your ads and you're setting them up and you go to the audience, you're going to do create new and then you're going to create custom audience.

And this is going to allow you, you're going to go to like, there's an Instagram option and you can select, there's lots of different options of how much someone's engaged with you. Generally, the default one that it goes to is the best one, so it's something like, People who've engaged with your account, and that generally means they've taken some kind of action.

So they've followed you, liked a post, commented, saved something, DM'd you so they've taken some kind of action to show you that they're interested in what you offer. And then you're going to have to select a time frame. so I'd suggest 180 days is probably a good starting point for when you're [00:05:00] first setting this campaign up.

So that's, six months. Your ad placements, I would probably just select the Instagram ones, so Instagram Feed, Explore, Shop, and then take off everything else. and then the last thing really is your budget. So I would start small. I'd start at like maybe two to three pounds a day.

You do not have to spend loads of money on this. I'd say every two to three pounds you could probably have maybe two to three posts that you're promoting. So I'd maybe think of like it as almost like a pound a post. So if you want to have a lot more posts that you're showing your audience, you're going to need more budget.

But you don't want to go too high on the budget because the reality is if you don't have a huge audience, and by huge I mean like hundreds of thousands, you're going to burn through that money really really quickly and suddenly your audience are going to see the same posts over and over and over again and that can just get a little bit boring.

So, I'd start with maybe about three pounds and like run two to three ads in that. that's essentially, that's the simple recipe, It's engagement ads, it's on Instagram only, we're going to show it to people who are already following you on Instagram [00:06:00] or have engaged with your Instagram in the last six months and we're going to start with like three pounds a day budget. Now, anyone can tell you that, You could probably read that on YouTube, you could probably Google that, and you could find that information, Yes, it's interesting, and yes, it's helpful, but it's really not unique. And what I want to talk to you now about for the rest of the episode is how you can maximize the impact of that campaign.

Because over and over again, what I have seen is that we can all set up ad campaigns, like anybody can go away and set an ad campaign up. Like, I do truly believe that, Yes. Okay. It might be a bit clunky and it might be a bit hard to get your head around, but setting up an ad campaign really isn't rocket science. the impact of the ad campaign, however, and whether it gives you what you want, that is the bit where the real skill comes in. And this is the bit that you really need to be thinking about. And this is what I don't see being talked about quite so much. now the biggest thing that will have an impact on your ads and how effective they are and how impactful they are with your current audience. [00:07:00] is literally nothing to do with e cads. The biggest thing that will impact the effectiveness of this ad campaign is your posts. Now you might not want to hear that because frankly, most of us would love to just be able to set up a really simple ad campaign and Let the ads do the work and really think, okay, actually it's all in the audience.

It's all in something meta is doing. the reality is, and I feel like this is a blessing as much as it's a curse, is the power is actually in your hands. especially for these kinds of campaigns, for this one and as well the one where you can grow your Instagram with a cold audience, so get your Instagram in front of new people.

This is similar to this one. The impact of that, the real impact is in your hands and it's in the quality and strategy behind your Instagram posts. I don't want to freak you out too much so I'm going to go into, the kind of things that you need to be looking for and the kind of things you need to be doing to create what I call power posts. so that when you're running these ad campaigns, [00:08:00] not only are they being shown to your current audience. But your current audience are engaging with them, they are, coming over to your grid, they are building a connection with you, and they actually create that uplift in engagement and people recognizing you, and people don't just scroll past them, or, you know, think, oh, you know, that's not for me. so the first thing I want to talk about is the type of content that you might want to show a client. your audience for this type of campaign. let's just take it back a step and think, who are we showing this to? if we go back to that recipe, we are showing it to people who have followed us or engaged with us in some way on Instagram in the last six months.

Now, some of those people our, like, super fans. They're going to have seen most of our posts. They are going to be engaging quite a lot. They're going to know who we are. They're going to be quite familiar with our content. Some of those people, six months ago, might have saved one of our posts. so you're really looking at that.

It's quite a broad spectrum of people and The kind of [00:09:00] familiarity they have with your brand. and that's great because that gives you a little bit of leeway in terms of the type of content that we want to show them The next thing I want to ask yourself is if you're running other ads so if you are running ads to a cold audience like growing your email list or getting new followers on your instagram for the Instagram one in particular, every single person that goes onto your Instagram account and takes some kind of action from the cold Instagram campaign, they are going to go into this campaign. so they're going to see your ad that says go to Instagram profile. They're going to go to Instagram profile, hopefully they're going to follow you, but maybe they like your post, they say something. They will then become part of the audience for this campaign. Similarly, with lead ads, generally, a lot of the time people will see your ad, they'll sign up, they might then go and follow you, they might look at your Instagram account. Even if they don't straight away, the likelihood is in your welcome sequence, you will direct them to your Instagram.

So there will be a large portion of the people who are on your email list that will then also fall into this segment. Audience as well. [00:10:00] So you have a real opportunity here to show new people who've come into your world, posts that you really want them to see.

So yes, they might go and see your Instagram, profile. The reality is they might see your last, what, nine, twelve posts. You have an opportunity to show them in their feed any posts you want. and you also, even once they're in your world, you can then also show posts to people who, have been in for longer.

So you've been in like, the last three to six months. you can also build on that relationship with them and show them content as well. Maybe know, Instagram stop showing them your content and you want to kind of re show them something.

You maybe want to, re engage them or help them understand exactly what you do. what kind of content are we going to be having for these kind of people? Here's a few examples of the kind of posts I would include in this kind of campaign. The first thing is, we really want them to get to know you. we want them to get familiar with your face, your story, your values. it doesn't have to be really explicit, like a post on your values, but we really want them to get them familiar with your [00:11:00] brand and you and what you do. So the first thing is, In a lot of your posts that you put up, I really, really highly recommend they have your face on them.

I mean, ideally a talking to camera reel would be great. But even if it's a graphic, we want your face on it. We want your branding on it. We really want to get them familiar with you. It can be really tempting just to create graphics on Canva some graphics absolutely fine. But the more we can get people familiar with your face and your name, the better. so now that you are including your face, you're gonna be talking to camera, maybe you're gonna do a reel with you on it, great. But what are you actually gonna be saying on these things? things like client transformations are amazing. Carousels work really, really well for client transformations.

I don't just want to see a very long testimonial shrunk down and put on a Canva graphic. I'm gonna be really blunt about that. If I'm scrolling through Instagram, and I see tiny text of someone's testimonial, and I have no context. I'm just really not interested. What I want is a hook on the front like how my [00:12:00] client went from, Struggling to hit 2k a month earning 200, 000 pounds a month.

I mean that's obviously an exaggeration, that's very click baity. But you see what I'm saying. I want the transformation, I want the hook, and then I want a carousel of walking me through exactly what happened with them and how you, as the business owner, like helped them do that. so some kind of client transformation, a testimonial, that can work really, really well. The next one is like you, your business story, something about you, that allows people to connect with you, that allows them to see Where you've come from and how that then helps them, like why they would want to work with you. Again, that delves into the values, that delves into like, are you someone I kind of want to do business with? then I would add some kind of teaching element. it doesn't have to be teaching in that way. It's something where they're going to see themselves in the post and then you kind of guide them through some kind of teaching moment or change.

So, for me, it could be talking about one video I have, which always does really, really well when I use it in this kind of campaign, [00:13:00] is I've got a video that talks about the warm audience trap. And it really helps people identify where on their Instagram they end up talking to people who already know them.

And actually that means that when new people come to their Instagram, they're like, This isn't for me because I don't really know what you do and you're not explaining yourself very clearly. So I call it the warm audience trap and it's a video that I did with me talking to camera and it's one that I use and it always works really, really well.

So some kind of teachable moment. Some kind of content that showcases your personality. overthink this. I think sometimes it's easy to be like, I don't know what that would be. but even if it's just a more fun reel, If you think about your, like, brand values, do you want to come across as fun, or, luxury, or is it more about, do you travel the world, or do you have kids, or are you likely to be out in the woods a lot, just things that allow people to connect with you on a more personal level.

level. And then, ideally, something that talks about your audience's [00:14:00] biggest struggle. So we don't like to do a huge amount of pain point stuff, but anything really that, identifies their struggle and guides them through how you can help them solve it. just want to say, none of this is rocket science.

None of this is like, oh, these are new types of content I've never heard of before. You will absolutely be creating this kind of content, organically. And I'm not saying that you need to create a load of content just for ads. That's absolutely not what I'm saying. however, I think when you're creating your organic content, sometimes it can be really helpful to have the ads in mind.

Because, I'm just talking of the warm audience trap, we can end up just creating content for what we think our current audience want to see. And if you think like, okay, if someone comes on my Instagram, I can show them five of my best posts, like five posts that are going to convince them that I'm the kind of person they want to work with. If you go on to Instagram now, do you have that? Like, really? Like, could you go through and be like, Oh yeah, it would be that one, that one, that one, that one, and that one. Because if you [00:15:00] don't, that's fine, but when you're creating organic content, just add it in. So that, actually, when you create this campaign, you're like, Oh yeah, I've got that sorted, that's fine.

And even if I do not Do not want you to not do this campaign because you don't have all of these types of content. you literally need two or three to start. and they don't have to be perfect. They don't have to be the best post ever. and they can be quite old if you go through and you find a great post but in the caption it talks about like a time sensitive thing like a workshop you ran or an offer you were doing.

Just edit the caption, nobody organically is going to be going back and looking at your, content from like a month ago. Frankly, probably even a week ago. so just go back and edit the caption so that it is relevant for an evergreen audience. So that you can send people to it day in, day out, for weeks, months, and it's absolutely fine.

There's no kind of time critical stuff in So, those are the types of content that I would really suggest. Now the [00:16:00] things just to think about when you're actually creating these posts or when you're looking for posts that might work in this kind of campaign. So, the image and video, make sure it is clear and high quality.

I probably don't have to say this really, it's just really a bit of a checklist. If you're going to be showing people your content, like, let's make it our best content, you want it to reflect your brand aesthetic, you want it to be, like, the kind of post that you kind of put a little bit more thought into. as I've said, it definitely shows you, ideally I want your face on it. in an ideal world. we don't want it to be too busy or cluttered. So again, like thinking of like that testimonial, I do not want a copy and pasted five paragraph testimonial on a canvas slide. We need to break that down.

We need to put a little bit of work in, make it really easy for the person consuming it to flick through and read it. and then the caption, we want a really strong hook. More than ever, like, obviously organically we want to have a nice strong hook, but if someone really knows us and are actively looking at our organic content, the reality is they, are probably going to be more interested and likely to read it than someone who we're kind of pushing it in front [00:17:00] of that maybe doesn't know us as well.

We want a really nice strong hook, that first line is really important. we want to make sure it tells a complete story. So, I'm not saying you have to include a story, but what I mean is the caption has to stand alone. you can't like refer to stuff that's also on your feed. Just make sure that if someone reads it, They can understand the context of what you're talking about and, they know exactly what's going on when they read the caption.

It doesn't rely on them having other information. you'd be surprised how often this happens. You might refer to, Oh, I'm launching ABC soon. Like, if I said that, all my audience, who know me really well, know that ABC is my audience builder course. However, if I just put ABC in a caption, I'm then showing to people who have maybe just started following me, they're gonna be like, what the hell is she talking about? that's what I mean by it has to be standalone. So I would put audience builder course and then maybe ABC in brackets. So it's that sort of thing. you want to make it your voice as much as possible. And try and encourage engagement if you [00:18:00] can, I don't want you overstressing about this, but just a prompt at the end, so like, comment below, or like, or save, you know, whatever it is, try and naturally prompt engagement. things to avoid, like I've said, time sensitive content, so anything related to sales, launches, offers, masterclasses, etc. do work really well, especially for like the client transformations. But don't make them too long. I think you can go up to like 20 maybe on Instagram.

But again, I would probably try and keep it to 10 if you can maximum. Just as a quick kind of End to this. The goal isn't just to get your posts seen, although obviously there is a natural benefit to that. It's about reminding your followers why they followed you, what got them excited in your content and we really want to choose posts that kind of re engage them with your account.

We want to kind of prompt them to kind of come over to your account, if they're not following you yet, follow you, engage, think, oh, yeah, this is Like an account I really want to engage with and ideally take a next step and like look at working with [00:19:00] you or going on your website and that sort of thing.

The power posts are the biggest thing that are going to make the difference in this engagement campaign and getting your content in front of 80 percent of your audience. rather than 20 percent that's going to make the biggest impact now as I've kind of alluded to I have created a brand new freebie which is campaign recipe and setting it up.

It talks about all the power posts and all the things you need to include It also includes a step by step launch checklist. So through every single element of setting up your campaign There's a checklist for you to make sure you've done everything you need to do as well as a launch and monitoring checklist as well.

I also include my three top tips on how to make the most of this kind of campaign the basics. So they're like the next level step. So once you've got this campaign up and running, you feel like it's working well,

there are some things you can do to take it to the next level. And in this free guide, I explain exactly what those three things are and how you can really make this campaign work for you. 

And [00:20:00] very excitingly I am launching a brand new mini course where I will show you Step by step exactly how to set up this campaign. There are videos, there are checklists It's exactly what you need to make sure you have got this campaign set up well And you are ready to go. Now, this is only 9, so there is absolutely no reason for you not to get the mini course and get started and get this engagement campaign live so that you can show 80 percent of your audience your content, rather than the 20 percent that you are currently getting to see it.

The links and everything you need are in the show notes. And I am very excited for lots of you to get this campaign up and live and to start getting your audience seeing all this incredible content that you're creating.

Thank you so much for listening today. Before you go, if this episode struck record with you, I'd be over the moon. If you could take a moment to rate, subscribe, and leave a review, your words not only [00:21:00] brighten up my day, but they are also the magic that helps others discover this lion hearted community.

Again, thank you so much and I will see you next week.