Advertising on Instagram is growing. By 2017, Instagram will be generating as much as 10% of Facebook’s global ad revenues. This may not sound like a lot, but it actually represents $ 2.5 billion. If you want a piece of this increasingly lucrative platform, you need to take action now.
Follow these tips for Instagram advertising success.
Powerful and Natural Images
As you would expect, Instagram is powered based on images. It makes sense that your images must be powerful and natural. The visual power of your images will determine how much success you gain from using Instagram. The highest quality images are essential, so if they are grainy or lack detail you shouldn’t post them.
Average images won’t stand out simply because they will be surrounded by images that are actually good.
No Direct Sales Pitches
You may be trying to meet your B2B sales quota on Instagram, but the problem with this is that people are still highly resistant to ads. They won’t respond to direct sales pitches. It may be tempting to feature your logo in every single image you post, but this is only going to take away from your good work.
The creative elements you include should be doing all the talking for your brand and whatever you happen to be selling. Believe it or not, this can have a far more positive effect than simply posting something that’s obviously promotional.
Reduce the Amount of Text
Some people believe using not enough text is a bad thing, and so they get around this by adding lots of text to the image. This is a mistake because it’s not what the user base of Instagram expects. Take a look at the top non-celebrity Instagram accounts of 2015 and you’ll see that very few contain photos with any text.
There are no direct limitations on text in images, like on Facebook. It’s generally accepted that people will realize that lots of their text in their images simply doesn’t work.
Keep the Copy Short
It’s well-known that social media users have short attention spans. And so they are not going to accept lots of copy, or if they do the chances are they aren’t going to read it. Keep your copy short. It should be no more than 40 or 50 characters. This doesn’t include the hashtags you will add in order to categorize your content.
This is one area where you shouldn’t be trying to innovate. This is a time where you should be following the crowd because that’s what your targets want.
Test Your Ads
If you are not always testing, the chances are you are using old-fashioned waterfall techniques and your progress will be painfully slow. But if you are constantly split testing every ad you produce you are going to find out what works and what doesn’t extremely quickly.
The main advantage of ad testing is that you are going to find out what works and what doesn’t extremely quickly. This is an ongoing process, and while it’s not easy to simply test ads against each other like you can on Facebook, you can try out different elements and see what feedback you get.
Effective split testing requires you to establish your brand and then to alter one little aspect. Do this over multiple images and see what response you get. You can then move on to a different element and try out something else. The testing process should make up the bulk of the process.
Instagram Isn’t Facebook
It’s easy to look at the similarities between Instagram and Facebook and assume that you can use the same tactics everywhere. You may be able to integrate Instagram with Facebook, but this doesn’t mean that they are the same. It doesn’t mean you should approach them in the same way.
They both require completely different sets of tactics in order to make them work. Separate your testing teams and don’t assume that because something works on one platform it will automatically work on another. The audience is different.
Conclusion – Making Instagram Work
Arguably, Instagram is far harder to monetize and it will take more time for you to turn it into a viable arm of your company. You have to persevere and integrate the power of visual marketing with your other marketing campaigns, including on your blog, on Facebook, and Twitter.
Instagram can be an incredible asset to your business in so many ways.
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