Instagram Business

Creating compelling ads in Instagram Stories

Since we launched Instagram Stories, our community of businesses has taken this immersive, full-screen experience and made it their own. In just over a year, this full-screen format has completely changed the way brands connect with their customers – with more than 50% of businesses having created a story during a typical month.1 As more than 300 million active Instagram accounts around the world watch and create stories every day,2 Instagram Stories is becoming an increasingly powerful way for brands to stand out and inspire action.

To help marketers better understand and master this emerging format, we teamed up with Facebook IQ3 to explore which creative elements best capture attention and drive results.
Crafting effectiveness with Instagram Stories

During one of our studies conducted in the US, we learned that several of the strategies associated with high-performing, mobile-feed ads – such as delivering information quickly and showcasing the brand or product advertised throughout – can also be effective for ads in stories.4 This effectiveness was measured based on two factors: breakthrough and response. With breakthrough, advertisers can measure the likelihood of an ad being noticed, viewed and recalled. While with response, they're able to measure the likelihood of an ad driving a reaction and brand action.

Our Instagram Stories campaigns have proven to be some of our highest ROI campaigns to date, while also driving a significant volume of reservations. This ad format not only delivers performance, but also effectively engages our best customers with crave-worthy content.
Tom Caterina, Digital Marketing, OpenTable
Creative considerations for ads in Stories

To help marketers create more compelling ads in Instagram Stories, here are a few takeaways we learned from a recent Facebook-commissioned study for advertisers to consider when creating ads in Instagram Stories.5

1. Relevance matters.

On average, top-performing Instagram Stories ads ranked higher on relevance than lower-performing ads. They also grabbed attention, were easy to understand and fit the advertised brand.

2. Seconds add up.

On average, top-performing ads in stories were shorter and contained branding earlier on than lower-performing ads in stories.

3. Fast pacing pays off.

Among ads in stories that contained multiple scenes, on average, scenes from top-performing ads were shorter than those from lower-performing ads.6

4. Product demos boost results.

Only about half of the Instagram Stories ads we tested showed the advertised product in use, but those that did performed better on key metrics.7

5. To be effective, bespoke ads must be mobile-optimised.

Nearly half of the ads we tested were built specifically for Instagram Stories, but few performed in the top third of all Instagram Stories ads studied – perhaps because they took longer to reveal the key message and contained longer scenes.
Moving forward

As more advertisers continue to use Instagram Stories, we'll gain an even better idea of which creative practices work best. In the meantime, we encourage advertisers to experiment with video content and the range of creative tools that Stories has to offer – such as face filters, superzoom and gif stickers.

If you're looking for more ways to get the most out of Instagram Stories and create more compelling ads, then make sure that you take a look at Facebook IQ's full article. And if you'd like to see how other brands such as OpenTable (@opentable) use Instagram Stories to connect with their audiences, explore their success stories here.

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Inspiring the Explorers

Arabian Travel Market is the global meeting place for the travel trade and Instagram Business was in attendance to talk about how brands are connecting with travel lovers through our platform to develop valuable relationships.

Priya Patel, Instagram’s Brand Development Lead in Dubai, was joined in a series of Instagram Live #NOFILTER broadcasts by Charlie Taylor, Group Director of Brand Communications for Jumeirah Group, Aida Mohammad Al Busaidy, Director of C2C campaigns for Dubai Tourism and Michelle Karam @traveljunkiediary and founder of travel4purpose to talk about how Instagram now brings travel brands to life.
The Changing World of Travel

In the past, people would have to wait until they were home to develop their camera films and fill photo albums with their adventures. Or they’d pick up a local postcard and mail it to a few friends and family.

Now, they are capturing and sharing their travel moments as they’re happening, with an immediacy and level of reach that means an extended family of travel lovers from all around the world get to feel like they’re on their trip with them. People are thinking about and experiencing travel in whole new ways and it’s all happening on Instagram.
Because of instagram, we’re able to showcase destinations, hotels and airline experiences. People are able to purchase travel much easier than they used to.
Michelle Karam, @traveljunkiediary and founder of travel4purpose

Moments that Matter

Being able to experience other people’s travel adventures means that millions of travel lovers are now making their future travel plans—where they want to go, how they’re going to get there and what they’re going to do when they arrive—with Instagram.

Travel lovers are coming to the platform every day inviting inspiration to find them and making memories they want to share, as well as seeking travel tips and uncovering hidden local gems that can’t be found in the guide books. And it’s not just from their friend networks—travel lovers are just as happy to hear from brands and businesses who can tap into their passion for adventure.We see instagram as a dreaming first platform. The right content on instagram can get those travelers dreaming about coming to our hotels, so it was a natural fit to be a key part of our strategy.Charlie Taylor, Group Dir. Brand Communications, Jumeirah GroupAppetite for Adventure

They say that travel broadens your horizons, and travel lovers on Instagram are the living proof of it, having a broad range of interests they’re actively engaging with alongside their passion for travel. Entertainment, retail, lifestyle and food all factor highly with them and they’re constantly on the lookout for experiences that connect with those interests when they are travelling.

We used to have to search online and check different stories and reviews, but today we can just go on Instagram and ask them directly ‘is the kids club good?’, ‘do they have a vegan option?’, ‘how’s the family room?’ and instantly in real-time their answer is on there.Michelle Karam,@traveljunkiediary and founder of travel4purposeTell your Story

The immersive power of Instagram Stories is connecting travel lovers with their friends as well as being a rich source of inspiration for them. With its built-in quality of playfulness and personality, stories on Instagram is proving to be a very reliable touchstone for brands that want to connect with travel lovers in a highly engaging and impactful way.

We understand the value-add that Stories have. The minute you start using them and add swipe-up we can create engagement that we can measure.Aida Mohammad Al Busaidy, Dir. C2C campaigns, Dubai Tourism

Inspiring Action

Instagram is a platform powered by visual storytelling that consistently inspires people to take action, whether that’s clicking through to a website, buying a product or sharing with their friends.

Brands and businesses on Instagram are experiencing the benefit of our precise demographic targeting that helps them connect with key travel audiences at the moments that matter—transforming interest into awareness and desire into sales, with a success rate that can be measured.

Instagram Stories has moved in the last 6 months from a nice-to-do to an absolute must-have within our marketing strategy.

Charlie Taylor, Group Dir. Brand Communications, Jumeirah Group
Where Travel Adventure Begins

Uncover for yourself how travel brands like Burj Al Arab, Dubai Tourism, Aeromexico, Virgin Holidays and many more are bringing their audiences closer and gain actionable insights into successful advertising strategies when you download your copy of DESTINATION INSTAGRAM now.

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Making it easier to do business on Instagram

People come to Instagram to connect and communicate with businesses they love. In fact, more than 200 million daily active Instagrammers visit a business profile each day.1

Instagram was Flour Shop's first home. My company might not have existed without the opportunity created through the platform. Instagram has been my CMO since day one.
Amirah Kassem, Founder and Flourist, @flourshop
Simplifying the Inbox

More than 150 million have a conversation with businesses through Instagram Direct each month, with a third of those messages beginning with an Instagram story.2 To make messaging easier and more efficient, we're introducing a new set of features for businesses using Instagram Direct.

From today, businesses will have a better way to manage their messages. Now you'll see important new customer messages in your main Direct inbox, instead of in the pending folder. You can also star and filter your conversations to come back to messages you want to follow up on. Additionally, over the next few weeks, we'll begin testing quick replies so that you can easily respond to common questions.

A lot of our customers find us through Instagram, and it is much more convenient for them to simply DM us through Instagram rather than opening their email app.Alex Mazerolle, Writer and Yoga Teacher, @girlvanayogaMoving from Discovery to Action

As more people continue to interact with businesses on Instagram and take action when inspiration strikes, we're making it easier to turn that discovery into action. Through our action buttons, people can now Reserve, Get Tickets, Start Order or Book through popular, third-party partners without having to leave Instagram.3 Take HomeState (@homestate) for example, a popular Texan restaurant, has partnered with ChowNow to use the 'Start Order' button – letting their customers order their signature tacos from their Instagram business profile.

These buttons are being rolled out with a range of partners, including:

• Acuity, Atom Tickets, Booksy, ChowNow, Eatstreet, Eventbrite, Fandango, GrubHub, MyTime, OpenTable, Reserve, Restorando, Resy, SevenRooms, StyleSeat, Tock and Yelp Reservations – all available now

• And coming soon: Appointy, Genbook, LaFourchette, Mindbody, Schedulicity, SetMore, Shedul and Vagaro

Instagram is where I post stories of new dishes, specials, weather and/or mood specific dishes that guests love to respond to… Now that I have Resy's 'Reserve' button on my profile, I've seen 15-20 additional bookings per week.
Annie Tucker, Marketing Manager, @thejonesokc

Learn more about how to add action buttons to your business profile here.

Some of these partners are also available for an action button on Facebook Pages; we recommend relevant businesses also look at enabling there.
Getting started

As businesses increasingly view Instagram as a place where business gets done, we're committed to making it easier for them to manage their presence on the platform. Whether through the recent expansion of shopping on Instagram,4 Introduction of action buttons or updates to Instagram Direct, business have more opportunities to connect and communicate with their customers.

To get started using Instagram for your business, create a business profile here. And make sure that you keep an eye out for our new series of in-product tutorials, where we'll share tips on how to plan posts, create engaging content and grow your community.5 These will be available in the settings of the app, under Tutorials.

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Beauty on Instagram

With over 800 million active accounts,1 Instagram has become the go-to destination for people to connect with their favourite beauty brands, creators and experts like never before. Whether through feed, live or stories, Instagram is changing the way in which emerging beauty trends are shared and experienced. As part of our recent Beauty Beyond events in Los Angeles and New York, we explored how Instagram provides advertisers with the perfect opportunity to engage with this highly active community in more immersive ways.

Of the top ten accounts that beauty Instagrammers follow, nine of these accounts are beauty brands.
Instagram data, Apr 20182
Built for beauty

The visual nature of Instagram allows people to follow and share their passions unlike anywhere else in the world – especially in the beauty community. In fact, beauty Instagrammers are active on the platform every day of the month,3 taking part in 33 sessions a day on average.4 The reason for this increasing activity is due to all of the rich content created by our diverse community of brands, creators and experts passionate about this thriving space – particularly through video. As more and more content is shared on Instagram from creators, our beauty community is helping Instagram become a destination for discovery and action.

Over a 28 day period, beauty Instagrammers experience 300 video views on average.Instagram data, Apr 20185Beauty beyond feed

With its unique focus on connecting the world through immersive video and imagery, Instagram's diverse palette of tools and surfaces work together to create the perfect «look» for advertisers when sharing their story with their community. But how do you know which tool or surface to use? While each creates a unique touchpoint for people to experience – whether it be live, direct or stories – using all of them together is the best way to maximise Instagram's true power and drive business results.

For example, beauty brands on Instagram can use this dynamic content experience to share exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage through live, over-the-top glamour shots in feed or bring its vast selection of products to life in stories – just like popular cosmetic brand Cover FX (@coverfx) did during a recent campaign.

Beaming with beauty

Just like a completed look, by paying attention to all the elements and how they work together, Instagram has become a destination where beauty converges. Whether it's brands showing off their latest products, experts sharing personal tips and advice, or consumers looking to discover more about their passion, beauty brings together some of the best content that Instagram has to offer.

To see how other beauty brands such as Benefit Cosmetics (@benefitcosmetics), L'Oréal Paris Hair (@lorealhair) and Birchbox France (@birchboxfr) use Instagram to create captivating content that drives business results, take a look at their success stories here.

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Creative secrets of Instagram Stories

Looking to step up your Instagram Stories game? Follow this creative guide inspired by Facebook's Creative Shop and unlock more ways to share your business with the world. From rainbow text to eraser magic, there are dozens of creative tricks for your business to uncover and enjoy. You just have to look for them.

So get your phone out and let's explore some secret hacks (and not-so-secret product features) for your business to play with on Instagram.
Creating the perfect match

It's time to ditch the default colour tray and find the exact shade to tell your story. Tap the colour eyedropper to match your font colour to an existing colour in your photo or video.

Tip: The eyedropper tool comes in handy when you have a lot of text put in.
Everything's better with rainbows

No, that person isn't painstakingly making each letter a different colour. There's a hack for that! To impress customers with rainbow gradient text, you'll first need to select all text and have two fingers ready.

Finger one: Tap and hold down any colour.

Finger two: Tap and hold the blue text selector line.

Ready? Now drag both fingers at the same speed and...boom! Same old text in all new rainbow hues.
Filling the screen

If you want a block colour but don't want to use the brush tool to fill it in manually, then don't worry, you don't have to. Access a full-screen colour effect by holding your finger down for a few seconds to make the whole screen one colour.

Tip: The marker brush will give you opaque colour, while the chisel tip is best to use for a semi-transparent effect.

Use this trick to make a post that's strictly text. Or, combine this hack with the eraser tool to reveal something in your text or video over a series of frames.

Bonus tip: Save, save, save. Create your masterpiece piece by piece, saving every step to your camera roll along the way, before you upload the full collection.
Moving pictures (and then some)

Did you know you can turn Live photos into Boomerangs at the touch of a screen? To bring your photos to life, first you'll need to open the camera and switch on Live mode, then take a photo of any moving object. Next, upload the photo to your story. Once it's uploaded, hold down on the photo with one finger to trigger a conversion to Boomerang. Ta-da!

Tip: Keep Live mode on for easier Boomerang access always.
Boomerang's secret menu

Just like In-N-Out (@innout) or Shake Shack (@shakeshack), the Boomerang app also has a secret menu. There's a special four-finger tap needed to get there, but once you're in you'll access additional features that make for extra pretty infinite loops.

To get to the secret menu, open the Boomerang app and tap four times with four fingers. Once you're there, you'll want to change these settings:

• Resolution: 1080p

• Boomerang mode: Forward and back (pause)

• Frame count: 3

• Long capture frame count: 25fps

These settings not only give you more frames, they will also add a frame at the beginning and end to make your loops look smoother – giving you longer movement than the native Boomerang experience in stories.
Unleash your creativity

Designed to elevate the visual experience of storytelling, Instagram Stories is changing the way in which creators, brands and people connect with the world on Instagram. By expanding the creative repertoire of our community through tools such as stickers, emojis, interactive polling and so much more, we're continuing to elevate and evolve what it means to create for mobile.

So what are you waiting for? Try out Instagram Stories today and let your business tap into its endless creative possibilities.

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