Boost Your Social Game: 17 Pro Tips for Facebook & Instagram Ads

The prevalence of advertisements within posts and stories on platforms like Facebook and Instagram is increasing alarmingly. Despite seamlessly integrating into feeds, a sizable portion of these ads is instantaneously blocked by users or simply bypassed. Surprisingly, only a minuscule fraction truly entices the user to peruse the advertiser’s profile or share the content among their social network.

In the ensuing discourse, we propose to elucidate the successful methodologies implemented by triumphant advertisers to captivate audiences. This narrative will provide potent tips on styling your videos, tales, and visuals effectively.

Effective Videos

There’s an undeniable expansion in the realm of social media advertising. With this expansion comes an evolution in creativity, intrigue, and overall quality. Let’s delve into strategies that will ensure your content stands out brilliantly, instead of simply blending into the vast sea of engaging videos.

Don’t ignore subtitles

Typically, videos on Facebook and Instagram are programmed to play automatically sans audio. Reflecting on user behavior, many individuals mute their smartphones to prevent disturbing others, be it during the early hours or in public spaces. Hence, the optimal advertisement video is one that is comprehensible irrespective of the audio. The simplest method to achieve this is by deploying subtitles and captions. Interestingly, using these not only makes your message clear but also heightens the video viewing time by around 12% on an average.

Talk about the brand within the first 3 seconds

When you’re showcasing a reputable brand, your goal is to ensure instant recognition from the audience. If your mission involves shedding light on a new brand for the users, swift action should be your motto. From the get-go, flaunt those elements that encapsulate the essence of your brand identity. Aspects like the distinctive color scheme, emblematic logo, brand name, and signature fonts aren’t to be skimped upon; use them strategically to augment brand recognition.

Talk about USPs in the first 5 seconds

It is incredibly beneficial to feature your Unique Selling Point (USP) early on in your video content. This can notably increase the probability that your application will pique the interest of viewers. If you opt to display your USP towards the end of the video, there’s a considerable risk that it may go unnoticed by your target audience.

10-15 seconds is enough for a video

Enduring through a lengthy video isn’t a piece of cake. Users on social platforms are overwhelmed with tons of visual content constantly. Notably, a video that is crisp, straightforward, and easily comprehensible has a higher probability of creating the anticipated impact. Suppose you aim to transmit a wealth of information (like announcing an entire product range, or unveiling multiple fresh offerings), then crafting individual videos is a more effective strategy. Let’s say, in the context of marketing a restaurant’s social media profile, you can produce distinct videos focusing on the cuisine, staff, menu offerings, and the ambience.

Attractive and Engaging Stories

The “Stories” feature swiftly garnered a lot of affection from followers, a trend that advertisers rapidly capitalized on. Every month sees approximately 4 million marketers employ stories as a medium for promotion, continually seeking ways to fine-tune this powerful advertising instrument. We’ve curated a list of five handy tricks to help you enhance your story-making skills, thus making them more impactful.

Add on to Stories with text

To highlight the unique attributes or components of a product, concise text callouts can be a useful tool. There are instances where purely visual content won’t suffice, such as mentioning specifics about pricing, promotions, or limited-time discounts. As part of your promotional strategy for Stories Ads, we suggest experimenting with a variety of creative approaches. Identifying the most impactful ones can offer valuable insights into your target audience and contribute significantly towards boosting conversion rates.

The More Dynamic, the Better!

In your narrative, incorporate several concise episodes that consecutively unfold. This method is a common practice among numerous companies such as IKEA, Red Bull, and auto industries emphasizing their performance metrics. The benefit of such storytelling ensures that viewers are captivated instantly when exposed to quick segments, resulting in most stories being viewed until conclusion.

• Integrating multiple quickfire scenes within your tale advances the narrative rapidly. This popular strategy is employed by a wide range of businesses, including but not limited to IKEA, Red Bull, and several vehicle manufacturers hinging their key performance indicators on it. Stories structured in this manner offer the key advantage of immediately capturing the viewer’s attention with brief, compelling episodes, leading to a high likelihood of the content being engaged with from start to finish.
• Introduce a sequence of brief, fast-paced scenes into your story. This storytelling tactic is a favorite amongst a variety of renowned brands such as IKEA and Red Bull, as well as vehicle manufacturers who prioritize performance. The allure of this style of storytelling lies in its ability to draw viewers swiftly and directly into the narrative, thus increasing the chances of the entire story being watched.
• Converse your tale through incorporating a succession of brief, closely strung scenes. This narrative technique is leveraged by various famous brands such as IKEA and Red Bull, and also automobile brands that emphasize their performance indices. The reward of such storytelling lies in its knack for engaging users instantaneously with short sequences, ensuring that stories are more often than not seen from beginning to end.

Engage your audience by interspersing your narrative with a series of brief, rapid-fire episodes. Adopted by a whole host of brands including IKEA, Red Bull, and performance-oriented car manufacturers, this storytelling approach captures the viewer’s attention immediately. The brevity and speed of these episodes hold the viewer’s interest and lead to stories being universally viewed in their entirety.

Consider the format of Stories

Stories are predicated on the notion of fully immersing the viewer. They utilize a vertical layout and experimenting with image rotation or video placement should be undertaken cautiously to avoid the exclusion of key information.

Stories afford individuals the chance to share their everyday happenings sans any elaborate editing or preparations. Therefore, the majority of stories exude an impression of being both unplanned and dynamic.

Beyond just modern aesthetics, professional photography, polished videos, well-researched content, and company-specific fonts, you could explore the tools integrated into Instagram, such as the typical videos shot within stories, default fonts, and digital stickers. However, it’s crucial to refrain from overuse, thereby permitting users to grasp both the underlying promotional message and your concept.

Take another look at the goal before making your creative elements

In the pursuit of brand awareness, it is crucial to familiarize your audience with the narrative behind your brand or the dedicated team that drives your company. If your brand’s association with a specific geographical location adds value to its identity, then make it a point to highlight this locale. To boost your sales, it may be beneficial to create engaging narratives about your products. Display their aesthetics, demonstrate their application, uncover the composition, and other significant aspects. However, it’s pivotal to maintain a balanced flow of information and not overwhelm the viewer with excessive details. There’s also something to bear in mind – the efficacy of stories is typically not as high for promotional posts as for post ads.

Add sounds to your ad

As per the data gleaned from Facebook, narratives or stories that incorporate any form of auditory element tend to have a higher effectiveness. These auditory elements could range from musical scores, sound effects, or even voiceovers.

Arresting images

Pictures play a pivotal role in conveying crucial features about a product. Follow our guidance and you’ll master this art of communication with greater efficiency.

Remember Aspect Ratios

To ensure all pictures are displayed optimally, you should adhere to the following aspect ratios:

• For an in-feed post, an aspect ratio of 1:1 or 4:5 is ideal.
• Stories are best viewed with a 9:16 aspect ratio.

Use a relevant call to action

The paramount purpose of promotional content is to stimulate a specific action from the consumer. Effectively communicating your offering to the user is crucial, be it enticing them to make a purchase, driving them to seek additional information, persuading them to subscribe, or urging them to install an app. Should you opt for a carousel format with multiple images, consider positioning your call-to-action in the final frame.

Don’t limit yourself to static images

Leverage the power of animation. Enrich your static images by adding animated titles, boomerangs, or GIFs. Optimize your posts by balancing between images and videos. Facebook’s data suggests that campaigns utilizing a blend of video and photo content dramatically outperform those relying solely on static content by a significant 86%.

Be mindful of the text on the photo

There may be instances when you have a chunk of text positioned below a photograph. In such cases, adding captions to the picture isn’t always a prerequisite. However, occasions do arise when such inclusion of captions becomes a necessity. This becomes particularly important when the image represents the Unique Selling Proposition (USP), highlights a distinctive offering, or lays bare the merits of your enterprise. Whether your aim is to supplement the photograph with significant details or merely want to experiment with a different typeface, it’s crucial to ensure that the accompanying text does not exceed 20% of the total image area.

Show more with a carousel

Avoid constricting your content to just one image when you have the potential to display as many as 10 images. The carousel option offers an ingenious way to weave an entire narrative, showcase the unique advantages of a product, exhibit multiple products simultaneously, and provide a user-friendly guide on how to purchase or use the product. Moreover, the carousel function permits the amalgamation of diverse formats (including photos, videos, and GIFs) to ensure that your audience remains engaged and entertained.

Effective Text

It is commonplace for users on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to scan their feeds at a brisk pace. Accordingly, to captivate the users drawn from these audiences, certain modus operandi ought to be applied.

Be Concise with your Words

Take into account that when you’re devising a caption for an image, a whopping 70% of users can grasp the given information on their mobile phones within a mere 0.4 seconds, as per the statistics provided by the Mobile Marketing Association. Here, being concise isn’t merely a sign of skill, it’s in fact a powerful tool for effective marketing. Ensuring that your caption is limited to 2-3 lines is an ideal practice, unless naturally, the content of your post necessitates a more elaborate explanation of the subject matter at hand.

Remember the importance of the first line

The initial line of your Instagram caption should prominently showcase your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) or other vital details. Instagram typically abbreviates a significant portion of the caption text, with a minority of users actually choosing to click on and fully expand it for reading. Thus, it becomes crucial that your most important message is communicated right at the beginning.

Ask Questions

Definitely, posing questions continues to be a viable tactic. Solicit your users’ viewpoints, request their suggestions, encourage them to express their thoughts, and delve into significant issues. This approach will not only provide deeper insights into your audience but also bolster engagement.

Should you adhere to these recommendations, pilot them and subsequently assess the outcome, you’ll appreciate the immense potential of advertising tools on social media platforms. Best wishes for your successful advertising campaigns!