The Complete Guide to Instagram Ads: A Step-by-Step Guide to Advertising on Instagram

Instagram offers incredible opportunities for businesses of all sizes to reach their target audiences.

But as more and more brands join Instagram and the feed becomes more competitive, it can be harder to stand out.

Imagine being able to reach the specific groups of Instagram users you want to connect with, engage them, and convert them into customers.

Well, that’s totally possible!

In late 2015, Instagram opened up Instagram ads. Using the Facebook advertising system, marketers can now reach any specific segment of Instagram’s 600+ million users. And with 400 million people using Instagram every day, Instagram ads have become an enticing avenue for brands looking to increase engagement (and profits, too).

We’d love to help you get started and running with Instagram ads. In this post, we’ll go through all you need to know to create your first Instagram ad, measure your ad performance, and improve your results.

Navigating this guide

Instagram advertising uses Facebook’s advertising system which is very comprehensive and powerful. Never before could we target people based on their age, interests, and behaviors to such specificity. There’ll be a lot to cover in this guide. To help make reading this guide easier, I have divided the guide into six short, digestible chapters.

Feel free to read it from top to bottom (thank you!) or skip to your favorite section with the quick links:

Chapter 1: An Introduction to Instagram Ads: Studies on why Instagram ads are so popular and whether Instagram ads suit your brand, and instructions for getting started.

Chapter 2: Getting started with Instagram Ads: How to choose objectives, define your target audience, place your ads in Instagram, and set your budget and schedule.

Chapter 3: The 6 Different Formats of Instagram Ads: A detailed walkthrough of each of the ad formats you can use for your Instagram Feed and Stories ads and how to create them.

Chapter 4: Creating Instagram Ads Within the Instagram App: A quick how-to guide on promoting existing Instagram posts as Instagram ads.

Chapter 5: Measuring Success: Tips and screenshots on using the Facebook Ads Manager to measure and analyze your Instagram ad performance.

Chapter 6: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and Helpful Tips: A short section to answer some questions you might have about Instagram ads.

Chapter 1:
An Introduction to Instagram Ads

Why use Instagram ads?

Since Instagram launched advertising on its platform in 2015, Instagram ads have driven more than one billion user actions. And just last year, it more than doubled its advertiser base in six months to 500,000 advertisers.

A survey by Strata in 2016 found that 63 percent of US ad agency professionals planned to use Instagram ads for their clients. This is a huge jump from the 34 percent in the year before (when Instagram ads were not yet available to everyone), making Instagram ads one of the most popular social media advertising choice.

(Image from eMarketer)

5 reasons to use Instagram Ads

Why are Instagram ads so popular? Here are a few reasons:

1. Audience growth: Instagram is one of the fastest growing social media platforms. TrackMaven studied 26,965 brands across all industries and found that brands saw a 100 percent median follower growth from 2015 to 2016.

2. Attention: Users spend, on average, 50 minutes a day on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. In the U.S., one in five minutes spent on mobile is spent on Instagram or Facebook.

3. Intent: A study by Instagram found that 60 percent of Instagram users say that they learn about products and services through Instagram, and 75 percent say that they take actions such as visiting sites, searching, or telling a friend after seeing an Instagram post.

4. Targeting: Instagram ads uses Facebook’s advertising system, which has probably the most powerful targeting ability. You can specify your target audience’s location, demographics, interests, behaviors, and more. You can even target people who have bought from you or interacted with you and others like them.

5. Results: According to Instagram, which looked at more than 400 campaigns globally, ad recall from Instagram ads was 2.8 times higher than Nielsen’s norms for online advertising.

Should you consider Instagram ads?

So, should you be using Instagram ads? Likely, yes!

Instagram ads are incredibly powerful, but before you dive in, there are several factors to consider:

1. Demographics — Is your target audience on Instagram? According to Statistic, as of December 2015, the largest U.S. Instagram user group were between 18 to 34 years old (26%), followed by 18 to 24 years old (23%). Pew Research Center found that in the U.S., female (38%) are more likely to use Instagram than male (26%). While the study was only conducted on Americans, I believe similar patterns exist globally.

For more details on Instagram demographics, check out our Instagram marketing guide.

2. Topics — Do your target audience talk about your industry/product/service on Instagram? Facebook surveyed 11,000 young adults (13 to 24) across 13 markets and discovered that some of the most popular topics on Instagram are:

• fashion/beauty
• food
• TV/films
• hobbies
• music

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but before diving into Instagram ads, I’d recommend doing some research on the topics your target audience engage with the most on Instagram.

3. Visual storytelling — Can you create visual content that blends into your target audience’s Instagram feed? According to the same Facebook study above, “Instagrammers appreciate aesthetic quality in visual content”. Instagram is a visual-first platform, where visual content, rather than text, is the primarily form of communication.

If you have a presence on Instagram already, it’s likely that you would have ticked all the checkboxes and Instagram ads are suitable for you. Otherwise, it might be great to start testing the water on Instagram without using any ad spend.

Tip: If you are just starting your Instagram account or wanting to refine your Instagram marketing strategy, check out our complete guide to Instagram marketing.

Chapter 2:
Getting started with Instagram ads

Instagram made it so easy to create Instagram ads. In fact, there are five different ways you can create and manage your Instagram ads:

• Within the Instagram app
• Facebook Ads Manager
• Power Editor
• Facebook’s Marketing API
• Instagram Partners

In this post, we’ll cover the first two (creating ads via the Instagram app and Facebook Ads Manager). These are the simplest two among the five and feel like the destinations where the vast majority of businesses will create Instagram ads.

The Power Editor and Facebook’s Marketing API are for people who want to create a huge quantity of Instagram ads at once while Instagram Partners are experts who can help with buying and managing ads at scale, engaging with your community, and creating Instagram content for you.

Creating Instagram ads using Facebook Ads Manager

Because the Facebook’s advertising system is so comprehensive, there are several steps we have to go through to create Instagram ads. They are quite straightforward, and we’ll go through each of them below. Here are the general steps:

• Choose a marketing objective
• Name your ad campaign
• (Some marketing objectives require additional steps here, which we’ll go through below.)
• Define your audience, placements, budget, and schedule
• Create the ad itself or use an existing post

Tip: While there isn’t a fixed naming rule, you’d want to use a naming convention such that you (and your team) can differentiate between them by the name. For example, here’s the naming convention that HubSpot uses:

Company Department | Content/Offer/Asset Being Advertised | Date | Name of Creator

Navigating to the Facebook Ads Manager

This method tends to be the way most marketers create Instagram ads.

Using Facebook Ads Manager tends to be easier than creating ads within the Instagram app, and you can do much more through the Facebook Ads Manager, too.

Editor’s note: We’ll go through creating Instagram ads within the Instagram app further below. If you wish to learn about it now, feel free to skip to that section.

Creating Instagram ads is very similar to creating Facebook ads. Just like Facebook ads, Facebook Ads Manager is the go-to place for creating, editing, and managing Instagram ads.

To access your Facebook Ads Manager, click on the drop-down arrow in the upper-right corner of any Facebook page and select “Manage Ads” from the dropdown.

Alternatively, you can use this direct link: https://www.facebook.com/ads/manager/ to go to your Facebook Ads Manager.

Once you are there, simply click the prominent, green button “Create Ad” in the upper-right corner to get started.

(If you have multiple ad accounts, you might have to select your preferred ad account for your Instagram ads first.)

Tip: To create Instagram ads using the Facebook Ads Manager, you only need to have a Facebook Page. You don’t even need an Instagram account!

The 8 Different Objectives of Instagram Ads

While Facebook offers 11 objectives in the Facebook Ads Manager, only the following eight will allow you to create Instagram ads.

1. Brand awareness
2. Reach
3. Traffic
4. App installs
5. Engagement
6. Video views
7. Lead generation
8. Conversions

Some of these objectives are super straightforward — you just choose the objective and create your ad right away. Others, however, may require a couple more steps before you can set your ad live. Here’s a quick rundown of each of the objectives (and how you set them up using Facebook Ads Manager):

1. Brand awareness

With this objective, you can help increase awareness for your brand. Your Instagram ads will be shown to people who are more likely to be interested in it.

There are no additional steps required for this objective.

2. Reach

With this objective, you can maximize how many people see your Instagram ads and how often. Unlike the brand awareness objective, the people who will see these ads might not all be interested in them.

Additional step:

After choosing this objective and naming your ad campaign, you’ll need to choose a Facebook Page to be associated with this ad campaign.

If you do not have an Instagram account, this Facebook Page will represent your business in your Instagram ads. If you have an Instagram account and prefer to use it, there’ll be an option to connect your Instagram account when you are creating the ad itself.

Tip: To create Instagram Stories ads, you can only use the Reach objective at the moment.

3. Traffic

With this objective, you can send people to your website or to the app store for your app from your Instagram ads.

Additional step:

After choosing this objective and naming your ad campaign, you’ll need to choose where you want to drive the traffic. You can choose either:

• Website or Messenger, or
• App (mobile or desktop app)

You’ll get to enter the destination URL when you are creating the ad itself.

4. Engagement

With this objective, you can get more people to see and engage with your post.

For this objective, you can choose the type of engagement you want such as post engagement, page likes, event responses, and offer claims. For advertising on Instagram, you can only choose “Post engagement”.

If you want to promote an existing post, this will be the objective to go for. But note that you can only promote an existing Facebook Page post. To promote an existing Instagram post, you’ll need to do it within the Instagram app. Click here to skip to the section.

5. App installs

With this objective, you can send people to the app store where they can download your app.

For this objective, there is a bonus feature — split testing (or A/B testing). This feature allows you to easily test different versions of your ads to find out what works best so you can improve your future ads.

Additional step:

After choosing this objective and naming your ad campaign, you’ll need to choose the app you want to promote and the app store you prefer (iTunes or Google Play for mobile apps or Facebook Canvas for desktop apps).

You can only promote one platform at a time. If you want to promote multiple platforms, you’ll need to re-create the same ad but select another platform.

6. Video views

With this objective, you can promote a video to more people. This objective is very straightforward, and there are no additional steps required for this objective.

7. Lead Generation

With this objective, you can create lead generation Instagram ads to collect relevant information from potential leads.

Additional step:

After choosing this objective and naming your ad campaign, you’ll need to choose a Facebook Page to be associated with this ad campaign. If you do not have an Instagram account, this Facebook Page will represent your business in your Instagram ads.

Note:

• Lead ads on Facebook and Instagram have several differences:
  • Not all pre-filled fields are supported on Instagram. Instagram currently support only these fields: Email, Full name, Phone number, and Gender.
  • The ads look different. To complete your Instagram lead ads, people will need to open the ad and click through a few pages to fill up their particulars. On Facebook, people only have to scroll down and not click through.
• For your lead ads to appear on Instagram, your ads have to follow Instagram’s design requirements for lead ads.
• When you are creating the ad itself, you’ll need to create a lead form. Click here to jump to the section on creating lead forms.

8. Conversions

With this objective, you can drive people to take actions on your website or app. Similar to the app installs objective, you can do split testing of your ads with this objective.

Additional step:

After choosing this objective and naming your ad campaign, you’ll need to choose the website or app you want to promote and a Facebook pixel or app event to help track the conversions.

If you haven’t set up a Facebook pixel or app event, there are instructions at that stage to help you.

Choose the audience, placement, and budget in 3 steps

1. Define the audience for your ads

Facebook advertising (and by extension, Instagram advertising) is so powerful because of the ability to target a very specific set of people. You can create a precise target audience by combining factors like:

• Location — You can enter global regions, countries, states, cities, postal codes, or addresses to show or exclude your ads to people in those locations.
• Age — You can select a range of age, with the widest range being 13 to 65+.
• Gender — You can choose to show your ads to all gender, men, or women.
• Languages — You can leave this blank unless your target audience uses a language that is uncommon in the locations selected.
• Demographics — You can target or exclude people based on their education, employment, household and lifestyle details.
• Interests — You can target or exclude people based on their interests, their activities on Facebook, the Pages they liked, and related topics.
• Behaviors — You can target or exclude people based on their purchasing behavior or intent, device usage, travel behavior, activities, and more.
• Connections — You can target people who have connections with your Page, app, or event.

Wow! And that’s not all…

You can also target people who have a relationship with your business such as customers or people who have interacted with your app or content (using “Custom Audience”). You can even target other people like them (using “Lookalike Audience”).

Once you have chosen your criteria, Facebook Ads Manager will show you information about your selected audience on the right. This breakdown includes information such as:

• How specific or broad your selected audience is
• Your targeting criteria
• Potential reach
• Estimated daily reach

Tip: This is a very brief rundown of the audience targeting options. For a more detailed explanation of each targeting option, feel free to read this chapter of our Facebook advertising guide.

2. Choose the placement of your ads

This is an important step if you want your ads to appear in only Instagram and not Facebook. Facebook Ads Manager tends to select both Facebook and Instagram placements by default. If you only want Instagram ads,

• Select “Edit Placements”
• Deselect “Facebook” (and for some objectives, “Audience Network”) under Platforms

If you want to create Instagram Stories ads, click on the arrow to the left of “Instagram” and select Stories from the drop-down:

If you prefer, you can use the advanced options to specify which mobile devices and operating systems (Android or iOS) you want your ads to appear. This is helpful if you are promoting a mobile app. For example, if you want to promote your iOS app, you might want to select “iOS Devices only”.

3. Set your budget and schedule

The next, and the final step before you create your Instagram ad itself, is to set how much you want to spend on your Instagram ads and how long you want to run the ads.

For your budget, you can set a daily or lifetime budget. The daily budget is the average amount you’ll spend on your ads every day. The lifetime budget is the total amount you’ll spend over the lifetime of your ads.

For your schedule, you can let your ads run continuously (until you hit your lifetime budget or you pause them) or set a start and end date and time.

There are also advanced options for you to tweak your budget and schedule. If you are just starting out, you can ignore those options as Facebook sets them according to its recommendations by default.

How much does it cost to put an ad on Instagram?

Instagram Ads work on the same system as Facebook Ads. Costs depends on a few factors including your budget and whether you select Manual or Automatic bidding. Instagram Ad will never cost you more than you have to spend, though. If you have a budget of $15 per day, Instagram Ads will never cost you more than $15 a day.

Further reading: For more context on the cost of ads, check out: The Complete Guide to Facebook Ads Pricing

Chapter 3:
The 6 Different Formats of Instagram Ads

Now, with your budget, audience, and placements set, you are ready to create your ad.

For Instagram ads, there are six formats you can choose from — four for Instagram Feed ads and two for Instagram Stories ads.

Instagram Feed Ad Formats

Here are the four for Instagram Feed ads (we’ll cover Instagram Stories ads below):

• Carousel (multiple scrollable images or videos)
• Single Image
• Single Video
• Slideshow
• Canvas (This format is not supported on Instagram at the moment.)

Tip: All the recommended image and video specifications are listed in the Facebook Ads Manager by the section where you would upload your media files.

1. Carousel

Carousel ads are ads with two or more scrollable images or videos.

How to create a carousel ad:

If you haven’t connected your Instagram account, here’s where you can connect it.

Next, fill up the text field with the caption you want for your Instagram ads. This caption will remain the same even when a person scrolls through your carousel ad.

The next step is to create the cards of your carousel ad. You can create up to 10 cards in a single ad. For each card,

• Upload an image, video, or slideshow (The specifications are all provided there.)
• Fill in the headline (This text will form the first line of your caption and will change as a person scrolls through your carousel ad. See the example above.)
• Leave the description blank (I believe this is for Facebook carousel ads.)
• Fill in the destination URL (This is the URL behind your call-to-action button).

There are also some settings for the entire carousel ad.

• Ignore the See More URL and See More Display URL fields (They are for Facebook carousel ads which have an end card.)
• Select the most appropriate call-to-action button (This will be the same for every card of the carousel ad.)

Tip: Facebook has a great resource and FAQ site for carousel ads. There are examples, best practices guides, design recommendations, and more.

2. Single Image

Single Image ads are what they say they are — ads with a single image. If you choose this format, you can create up to six ads with one image each.

How to create a single image ad:

Single image ads are much easier to create than carousel ads. The first thing to do is to select the image(s) for your ad. You can choose from your previous uploads (i.e. Image Library), select free stock images, or upload new images.

Then, the main field to fill up is the text field (i.e. your caption for the ad). The caption may include up to 300 characters but note that characters after the third line will be truncated into an ellipsis (“…”). Facebook recommends using 125 characters.

If you want to drive traffic to your site, select “Add a website URL” and more options will appear. All you have to do is to fill in your website URL and select a call-to-action button. The remaining fields (Display Link, Headline, and News Feed Link Description) won’t be used for Instagram ads.

3. Single Video

Single video ads are ads with a video or a GIF.

How to create a single video ad:

After you select this ad format, select a video from your library or upload a new video. Then, you can choose a video thumbnail from the list provided or upload a custom thumbnail. You can also upload a SRT file for the video captions.

Then, fill up the text field with your caption. Similar to single image ads, the caption may include up to 300 characters but note that characters after the third line will be truncated into an ellipsis (“…”). Facebook recommends using 125 characters.

If you want to drive traffic to your site, select “Add a website URL” and more options will appear. All you have to do is to fill in your website URL and select a call-to-action button. The remaining fields (Display Link, Headline, and News Feed Link Description) won’t be used for Instagram ads.

4. Slideshow

Slideshow ads are looping video ads with up to 10 images and music. It’s almost like a carousel ad that scrolls on its own — with music.

How to create a slideshow ad:

You can upload an existing slideshow or create a new slideshow. Facebook Ads Manager has an easy-to-use slideshow creator. Simply upload your images, arrange them to your liking, adjust the settings, and select a music.

Just like a video ad, you can also choose a thumbnail and upload video captions.

Then, fill up your caption and add a website URL if you prefer. This part is the same as the single image and single video ads.

Tip: If you have an existing Facebook Page post that performed well and you’d like to use it for your Instagram ad, you can select “Use Existing Post” at the top of the page. Note that this option only allows you to choose from existing Facebook Page posts. If you want to use an existing Instagram post, see the Chapter 4.

Extra: Lead Form

If you are creating lead ads (i.e. using the lead generation objective), there is an additional step, regardless of the ad format you choose. That is to create your lead form. You can use a previous lead form you have created or create a new one.

To create a new lead form, there are several fields to fill in:

• Welcome screen (You can turn this off, and the form will appear first.)
  • Headline
  • Image
  • Layout (Description)
  • Button text
• Questions (You can pick from a list of options or create custom questions.)
• Privacy policy (As you will be collecting user information, you need to include your company’s privacy policy)
• Thank you screen
  • A website link which people can visit after filling up the form

Once you have filled in these fields, click “Finish” and your lead form is ready!

Tip: Once you hit “Finish”, you won’t be able to edit the lead form. You can use the “Save” button to save a draft of the lead form if you wish to edit it afterward.

Instagram Stories Ad Formats

Instagram just opened up Instagram Stories ads to businesses globally. If you don’t see this option in your Facebook Ads Manager, it might be that it hasn’t been rolled out to your country yet.

Instagram Stories ads appear in between people’s stories. Here are the two Instagram Stories ad formats:

• Single image
• Single video

Tip: To create Instagram Stories ads, you’ll have to choose the Reach objective and select “Stories” under the Placement section.

5. Single Image

With this format, you can create up to six ads with one unique image each. It looks just like a normal Instagram story with a tiny “Sponsored” at the bottom.

How to create a single image Instagram Stories ad:

There isn’t much customization you can do with Instagram Stories ads, making them very straightforward and simple to create. All you have to do is to upload your image(s).

If you wish to enable pixel or offline tracking, you can find the options under “Show Advanced Options”.

6. Single Video

With this format, you can upload a video or GIF of up to 15 seconds in length.

How to create a single video Instagram Stories ad:

Simply upload your video or GIF and choose a video thumbnail. The thumbnail you choose will be what people see before your video plays. It can influence people’s decision to watch your ad.

If you wish to enable pixel or offline tracking, you can find the options under “Show Advanced Options”.

Chapter 4:
Creating Instagram Ads Within the Instagram App

The alternative to creating Instagram ads with the Facebook Ads Manager is to use the Instagram app. The Instagram app allows you to promote an existing Instagram post, and I believe this is the only way to do that.

There are a few requirements to meet before you can promote directly from the app:

• You need to convert to a Business Profile on Instagram. (Here’s how!)
• You need to be an Admin of the Facebook Page connected to the Instagram account. (If you want to be added as an Admin, here’s how.)
• You need to follow Facebook’s Advertising Policies.

Once you are set up, here’s a quick run-through of the process in three simple steps:

1. Select the post you want to promote

Find the post you’d like to promote and click on the blue “Promote” button. You may be prompted to log in to your Facebook account.

2. Choose an ad objective

Unlike in the Facebook Ads Manager, there are only two objectives to choose from:

• Visit your Website
• Call or visit your business

3. Set your action button, audience, budget, and duration

Depending on your ad objective, you will have different action buttons to choose from. After you choose an action button, you can enter your preferred URL, address, or phone number.

Just like in the Facebook Ads Manager, you will set who you want to target, how much you want to spend, and how long you want to run the ad.

For your audience, you can target by locations, interests, age, and gender.

For your budget, you determine the total budget for the ad. Unlike in the Facebook Ads Manager, you can’t choose a daily or lifetime budget or change any advanced options.

For your ad duration, you enter the number of days you want to run the ad. The ad starts immediately.

Once you are ready, you can review your order, preview the ad, and promote it.

Chapter 5:
Measuring Success

Like Facebook ads, the performance data of your Instagram ads will be available in your Facebook Ads Manager.

The Facebook Ads Manager reporting table might look intimidating at first glance but don’t let that scare you. Think of it as a spreadsheet of all your ads and their performance metrics — and it’s easier to use.

The reporting table is quite easy to use once you get a sense of what can it do. To get you started, here are some of the things you can do with the reporting table:

Toggle between ad campaigns, ad sets, and ads

The first thing you might want to do is see all the ads you and your team have created to understand the big picture.

Facebook (and Instagram) ads follow a simple three-tier structure: Ad campaigns > Ad sets > Ads.

(Image via Digital Vidya)

Ad campaign is the highest tier of the structure, where you decide your marketing objective for the campaign. Within each ad campaign, there is one or several ad sets.

Ad set is the second tier of the structure, where you set your audience targeting, placement, budgets, and schedule. Within each ad set, there is one or several ads.

Ad is the final tier of the structure and the “final product” that people see on Facebook.

Facebook Ads Manager has a drop-down menu on the left to let you toggle between your ad campaigns, ad sets, and ads. This way, you can quickly compare how various ad campaigns, ad sets, or ads are doing.

Tip: If you want to find a specific ad campaign, ad set, or ad, you can also use the search bar at the top of the page.

Analyze the performance metrics of your Instagram ads

Just like a spreadsheet, the reporting table allows you to see the performance of your Instagram ads at a glance. You will be able to see metrics such as the results obtained by the ads, the cost of the ads, and the amount spent.

If you do not see the metrics you are interested in, you can change the columns by clicking on “Columns: Performance” and then “Customize Columns…”. A popup will appear, and you can select the metrics you want or deselect those you don’t want.

Once you have the metrics (or columns) you want, you can sort the data by clicking on the heading of a column or export the data using the export button on the right.

Finally, if you want to drill down into each ad campaign, ad set, or ad to see more detailed metrics and charts, simply click on its name. This is an example of what you’ll see:

Tip: If you want to dive deeper into Facebook Ads Manager to manage and analyze your ads, here’s our one-stop guide to the Facebook Ads Manager.

Chapter 6:
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and Helpful Tips

FAQs

Can I create Instagram ads without a Facebook Page?

It seems like a Facebook Page is required if you want to run Instagram ads. If you don’t have a Facebook Page, another option is to run Facebook ads (with some limitations).

Can I create Instagram ads without an Instagram account?

Yes, you can! All you need is a Facebook Page. If you don’t connect an Instagram account, here are a few things to be mindful of:

• Your Facebook Page’s name and profile photo will be used on your Instagram ads to let people know the ads are from your business.
• You can’t reply to comments on your Instagram ads.
• Your Facebook Page’s name will be used as your Instagram handle, which won’t be clickable. If your Facebook Page’s name is more than 30 characters, it’ll be truncated with an ellipsis (“…”).

Where will my Instagram ads appear? Can they be seen on a desktop computer?

Instagram ads will only appear in the Instagram app on iOS and Android devices. They will not be shown to people who are browsing Instagram on a desktop computer or other mobile sites. If you want people to see your ads on a desktop computer, Facebook ads might be a better option.

Should I run my ads on both Facebook and Instagram?

Facebook’s recommendation is yes. When you run ads on both platforms, Facebook will optimize your ad placement to achieve the most results with the lowest cost. Facebook Marketing Science did a study and found this to be true. Smartly.io’s experience with Facebook and Instagram ads confirmed this, too.

Having said that, it might be worth considering if your Facebook and Instagram strategies are aligned and if your Facebook ad might look out of place on Instagram and vice versa. For instance, as our Instagram account focuses on user-generated content, an ad for Facebook about video marketing tips will likely look odd on people’s Instagram feed.

Are there any guidelines for Instagram ads?

Yes! Facebook has an incredible resource about every type of ad for every marketing objective. In there, it previews an sample ad and lists the design recommendation, technical requirements, and call-to-action information for every single type of ad.

3 Helpful Tips for Creating Instagram Ads

Creating ads (and paying for them) for the first time definitely doesn’t feel easy. As I’d love to help you succeed with your Instagram ads, I curated several helpful tips on creating great Instagram ads. Feel free to explore the articles below to read more Instagram ads tips.

Blend in, don’t stick out

(from Doug Baltman, Instagram Advertising in 2017: What You Need to Know)

Doug Baltman’s advice is to use photos that blend in with other photos on your target audience Instagram feed. Otherwise, your ad will stick out as inorganic content and be less effective. This is the same advice given by Facebook. This could mean to use photos of people or your product instead of illustrations or…

A general rule is to try to avoid putting words on top of images…

As most Instagram posts do not have text on the photos, any photos with text on them will feel out of place. Instagram users might detect that it’s an ad immediately and quickly scroll past it.

Tip: The more text you have on your ad, the less reach it’d receive (apart from a few exceptions). Here’s Facebook’s guide for using text in ad images.

Leverage user-generated content (with permission)

(from Pawel Grabowski, 26 Instagram Ad Best Practices That Will Make You an Outstanding Marketer)

In his article for AdEspresso, Pawel Grabowski shared 20 best practices for Instagram ads. Among the 20, the advice on using user-generated content stood out for me.

User-generated content is more genuine and helps potential customer gain trust in you. Pawel quoted a report by Nielsen which stated that “92 percent of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising.”

Using photos from your customers in your ad design (with permission) makes your Instagram ads more effective and helps your ads blend in, too.

Use targeting to connect with a local audience

(from Ana Gotter, 26 Instagram Ad Best Practices That Will Make You an Outstanding Marketer)

This is a great advice for local brick-and-mortar businesses. Facebook’s advertising system allows you to target very specific locations while Instagram’s business profile features allow customers to contact you or get direction to your business.

Imagine being a local restaurant which shows an ad featuring their most mouth-watering dish to a user within a close proximity, just in time for dinner, and that user immediately sees a map and directions to you. All it takes is a click to your profile, and you can get both a new customer and a new follower at the same time.

Over to you

Wow, that was a long guide. Thanks for making it all the way to the end!

I’d love to hear about your experiences with Instagram ads. If you have run Instagram ads before, what was your strategy, and how did they perform? If not, is there anything that is giving you a pause with Instagram ads?

Just like Facebook ads, I believe Instagram ads will constantly evolve and improve, allowing us to create even better ads. A good case in point: in the process of writing this guide, Instagram introduced lead gen ads and Instagram Stories ads.

If you have not looked into Instagram ads, I think it’ll be worth checking it out for your business.

Thank The Complete Guide to Instagram Ads: A Step-by-Step Guide to Advertising on Instagram for first publishing this post.

Facebook Stories: Everything You Need to Know About Facebook’s Latest Feature

Facebook has today begun the global roll-out of Facebook Stories, short user-generated photo and video collections that disappear after 24 hours.

The story format, originated and made famous by Snapchat, has been on Facebook’s radar for some time, with the Menlo Park-based company first testing a Snapchat Stories clone within Messenger in September 2016. Now, Facebook users can share stories within the main Facebook app.

The feature, known as Facebook Stories, is focused around Facebook’s in-app camera which allows users to overlay fun filters and Snapchat-like lenses to their content as well as add visual geolocation tags to their photos and videos. To access the camera, simply swipe right on Facebook’s mobile app.

This launch follows hotly on the heels of Instagram’s incredibly successful stories launch. Instagram Stories launched in August 2016 and now more than 150m people use Stories daily across the globe.

Editor’s note: We’re working to confirm if this feature is indeed available to all from today or whether the roll-out is only for certain countries.

How Facebook Stories work

Similar to Instagram Stories, content shared to stories will appear at the top of the Facebook News Feed. To view a story, users simply tap a friends’ circle at the top of the app.

While viewing a story, users can also reply with a direct message.

How to add content to Facebook Stories

Step 1: Access the camera 

To create a story on Facebook, you first need to access the camera. You can do this by swiping right on the Facebook mobile app.

Step 2: Create your content

Facebook users can share both photos and videos to stories. Once you have the camera open, you’ll be able to record your video or snap a quick photo. You’ll also notice a range of lenses and filters available to embellish your content.

To take a photo, tap on the button in the center of the screen and to record a video hold down this button.

Step 3: Share to your story

Once you’re happy with the post you’ve created, the next step is to share it to your story. To do this, tap on arrow icon in the center of the screen and then select ‘Your Story’ and tap on the send button in the bottom right of your screen. You can also send your post to selected friends via a direct message.

Once you’ve shared a post to your story, it will display for 24 hours and then be gone forever, just as Snapchat and Instagram Stories work. Videos and photos posted in a Facebook Story won’t show up in the News Feed or on a user’s timeline by default, but users can choose to share to the News Feed as well if they’d like to.

Editor’s note: The Facebook Stories update isn’t yet available to all users, but begins its worldwide rollout today.

Countering the content collapse: Facebook Stories offer a way to encourage original content

The fuel that has fired Facebook’s extraordinary growth so far is user-generated content.

However, the sharing of original, user-generated content such as status’ and images declined 21% between mid-2015 and mid-2016. At the same time, sharing of news articles and other outside links increased, The Information, a tech news site, reported.

For Facebook, this seems to be a problem. Many of its users are no longer creating their own content, instead opting to share links and information from other websites. Internally at Facebook, Bloomberg reports this issue is known as “context collapse.”

It appears that the habit of sharing of personal content, such as images and videos, has shifted to smaller, more closed communities like Snapchat, instant messengers (like Whatsapp, Messenger) and Facebook-owned, Instagram.

Facebook Stories introduces the concept of 24-hour disappearing photos to a much wider audience than any other product to date. Over 1.7 billion people use Facebook’s mobile app each month, many of whom may not have come across story-style content before if they don’t use Snapchat or Instagram Stories.

From a content perspective, this seems to make sense for Facebook. When people open Facebook they expect to see photos and videos from their friends and connections. But with fewer users creating content and a rise in brands posting to Facebook and ads in the feed, many users feel they miss out on the type of posts that helped Facebook to take over the social media world.

Whether Facebook’s core users will adopt the feature remains to be seen. Though it’s a place for friends, Facebook appears to be much wider network than places like Instagram and Snapchat where users may be a little more selective with who they add and share content with.

A move towards camera-first communication

Combatting the context collapse seems to be an important challenge for Facebook. One way the company is approaching this challenge is through promoting camera-first communication.

Facebook’s main app is one of their last properties to adopt the stories format, which focuses on user-generated photo and video content. Messenger Day was launched with Messenger in March 2017, following hotly on the heels of February’s Whatsapp’s Status update and Instagram Stories rolled out in August 2016.

In a recent note focused on Messenger in 2017, David Marcus, Facebook’s Head of Messenger explained how the camera is beginning to replace the keyboard:

People expect the world to be so much more visual than it’s ever been before. Many of us now have powerful cameras in our pockets so when we rolled out our new camera at the end of 2016 we were reflecting this trend. We built a fast, feature-rich camera as a way for you to share visually everyday – whether it’s a video clip or quick selfie or a silly moment.

By popularizing visual, short-lived visual interactions on mobile, Snapchat started the ball rolling on the trend of camera-first communication and almost every platform is now following suit and prioritizing visual, in-the-moment content.

Whereas a few years back we may have sent an SMS or IM to our friends to share interesting and fun moments, many now default to our cameras to share this moment. Text now acts as a support to the more visual side of communication. Much like real life interactions, where our visuals and body language tell as much of a story as the words we’re saying.

Over to you

Have you tried Facebook Stories yet?

I’d love to hear what you think about this update. Will you share your day on Facebook? How will you manage stories across Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and Whatsapp?

Let me know in the comments

Thank Facebook Stories: Everything You Need to Know About Facebook’s Latest Feature for first publishing this post.

Getting to Know the Ghost: The Complete Beginners Guide to Snapchat

This post has been refreshed for 2017

Snapchat is the latest platform taking the social media world by storm.

Since its launch, in September 2011, Snapchat has shown incredible growth. The Venice, California-based company now boasts over 161 million daily active users and 10 billion video views, daily.

And with consumer attention comes ad dollars, with many major brands turning to Snapchat as a way to connect with their audience. Gatorade is one of the brands getting involved; they ran a sponsored Lense during the Super Bowl and generated over 100 million views.

So how can you get in on the action? And how can you use Snapchat to grow your business?

This post will give you the lowdown on Snapchat, from the basics of how it works to 5 super-actionable tips for brands and businesses from marketer, Everette Taylor.

Ready? Let’s get started 

Getting to Know the Ghost: A Handy Guide to Using Snapchat for Marketers

• Contents:

• – What is Snapchat?
• – Snapchat 101
• – Everette Taylor’s top tips for brands on Snapchat
• – Recommended accounts to follow

What is Snapchat?

In a social media age where saving and preserving moments has become the norm, Snapchat found a way to go against the grain.

With Snapchat, every moment is temporary. What’s shared is rarely saved. It’s about in the moment connections.

In its rawest form, Snapchat enables us to share temporary, self-destructing photos, videos, and messages (also known as ‘Snaps’). Images and videos will last anywhere from one to ten seconds, and users can embellish each Snap with captions, drawings, and filters.

Once a Snap has been viewed, it’s gone forever.

Though the temporary nature of Snapchat may sound a little strange, when you think about how we interact with each other day-to-day, Snapchat mimics that behavior closer than any other social network, as Gary Vaynerchuk explains:

The way Snapchat works is much closer to how we communicate face to face than any other social network. What I mean by this is that: when we talk to each other, passing in the halls or just living out our lives, those moments disappear. Snapchat emulates that behavior and psychology.

Sidenote: The infamous ghost in Snapchat’s logo is named Ghostface Chillah, based on Ghostface Killah of the Wu-Tang Clan.

Snapchat 101: Everything you need to know about getting started with Snapchat

So we’ve covered a little about what Snapchat is, but how exactly does Snapchat work? Let’s dive into some of the main features, and frequently asked questions.

Snaps, Stories, and Chat

What’s a Snap?

Snap is the word used to describe disappearing photos and videos – the main functionality of the app. When you send a Snap to a friend, you can make it last anywhere between one to ten seconds and then once it’s been viewed, the Snap will disappear.

What’s a story?

A Story is a collection of Snaps played one after the other. Stories, unlike Snaps sent to individual friends, can be viewed by anyone who follows you. Stories last up to 24 hours after being posted and people who follow you can re-watch stories as many times as they like.

Pro tip: When you’re watching a Snapchat story, you can reply to a particular photo or video by swiping up from the bottom of the screen.

What are Memories?

With Snapchat Memories, you can now, for the first time, share photos and videos captured outside of Snapchat to your Story.

Memories enable Snapchat users to tell bigger stories that incorporate more than just in-the-moment photos and video. Instead of purely spontaneous content, Snapchat can now be used to share much more thoughtfully — similar to the approach you’d take with platforms like Instagram and Facebook, where the content you post doesn’t disappear.

How does chat work?

Snapchat also has a Chat feature, to start a conversation with someone just swipe right on their name from your recent Snaps page. Like Snaps, Chat messages disappear once you’ve read them.

More than 60 percent of users use the app’s chat function every day.

You can find out more about how Chat works in the below video:

Further reading: Everything you need to know about Snapchat Chat

Snapchat Chat: Everything You Need to Know About Snapchat’s Excellent Messaging App

Lenses and Filters

Whether you want to add an Instagram-style image filter or add a monocle or mustache to your selfie, Lenses and Filters are fantastic, and fun, ways enhance your Snaps.

Lenses

Launched in September 2015, Lenses are a fun way to augment your snaps.

Lenses are usually funny or goofy animations that are overlaid on top of your selfie and around 10 million snaps use Lenses every day.

Snapchat explains how Lenses work on their blog:

When you’re using the camera to take a selfie, just press and hold on your face to activate Lenses. You can play with Lenses before taking a Snap — just select one from the row at the bottom and follow the on-screen instructions!

Here’s an example Lens:

Sponsored Lenses 

To achieve long-term success, any social network must figure out their monetization strategy.

Initially, Snapchat experimented with sponsored ‘brand stories’ and a Lens store. However, for now, they seem to have settled on sponsored Lenses as their primary revenue stream.

Around a month after releasing Lenses, Snapchat debuted their first sponsored Lens in partnership with Twentieth Century Fox, who used the Lens to promote the release of The Peanuts Movie.

Since the first sponsored Lens, many brands have tested the water. One uber-successful example is Gatorade’s sponsored Super Bowl Lens which generated over 100 million views over SuperBowl weekend – that’s almost as many views as the game got live in TV (111.9 million).

Snapchat reportedly sells these sponsorships for between $450,000 and $750,000 per day.

Filters

Much like other social networks, Snapchat allows you to to enhance  your content with filters. To view the filters available to you swipe right after recording a video or taking a picture.

Pro tip: You can add multiple filters to an image by holding a finger on the screen once you have one filter selected and continuing to swipe.

Geofilters

Geofilters are unique overlays for Snaps that can only be accessed in certain locations. Here’s an example from Monterrey, Mexico:

Creating a geofilter

Anyone can submit their own geofilter, and Snapchat encourages artists and designers to use this these filters to bring their own style to the Snapchat community.

Here are Snapchat’s recommendations for geofilter submissions:

• Filters must be submitted as a web-optimized, transparent PNG
• Your PNG should have a width of 1080 pixels and a height of 1920 pixels
• Your PNG must be under 300KB in size

Sponsored geofilters are currently being rolled out with a few selected brand partners and are working on launching a broader geofilters product later this year.

To learn more about Snapchat geofilters and how to submit your own, check out our guide.

On-Demand geofilters

Snapchat have now introduced a third type of geofilter. On-demand geofilters enable anyone to pay Snapchat have their own, unique geofilter available in a specific location for a set amount of time.

As TechCrunch report:

The minimum size for these geofilters is 5,000 square feet (enough to cover an office building) and the minimum amount of time the geofilter can exist is 30 minutes. On the other side of the spectrum, users can spread their on-demand geofilters as far as 5,000,000 square feet.

The turnaround time for review is about a day, and pricing starts at $5.

This is hugely exciting and could open up a wealth of opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses to use Snapchat as a marketing channel.

Imagine you run a restaurant, you could create a filter to celebrate a new dish and make it available in your town. Or a local cinema could run a geofilter for a new movie coming out. The possibilities here are endless.

Are you excited by the prospect of on-demand geofilters? I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas in the comments below this post. 

Learn more about Snapchat Geofilters and how to build your own with our step-by-step guide: 

Everything You Need to Know About Snapchat Geofilters (And How to Build Your Own)

Discover: Snapchat’s media destination

In January 2015, Snapchat launched Discover, “a new way to explore Stories from different editorial teams.”

Discover launched with 11 top media companies such as ESPN, The Bleacher Report, CNN and Vice. Discover put these brands in a prime position to grab the attention of Snapchat’s young audience.

Here’s how Discover works:

How to add friends

There are a number of ways to add friends on Snapchat. The first thing you need to do is tap the ghost icon  displayed at the top of the camera screen and select the ‘Add Friends’ option.

From the ‘Add Friends’ screen you can add other accounts by Username, from your Address Book, by Snapcode or Nearby.

Add by Username

If you know the username of the account you’d like to add, just type their username in the ‘Add by Username’ field and then tap on the ‘+’ button to connect with them.

Add from Address Book

This option will enable you to search the contact on your phone to see who is already on Snapchat. From here, you can also send an SMS invite to anyone who isn’t currently on Snapchat.

Add by Snapcode

A Snapcode works just like a QR code and you can add friends  by scanning their Snapcode using your smartphone. You can scan a Snapcode directly from someone else’s Snapchat app, or scan it from a photo you’ve received via email or IM. 

To scan a photo that includes a Snapcode, you just have to tap on  ‘Add Friends’ > ‘Add by Snapcode’ > ‘Photos.’

Add Nearby

Nearby is a location-based feature, enabling you to search and connect with other Snapchatters who are in the same area as you. Tap on ‘Add Friends’ > ‘Add Nearby’ and Snapchat will find nearby users.

Sharing your username

Snapchat has also released a way to share your username publically and allow people to connect with you.

To do this, tap on ‘Add Friends’ > ‘Share username.’ This will then generate a link for you that will look something like this snapchat.com/add/ashread14. If you share this link with someone, they can then add you on Snapchat (this works really smoothly on mobile, on desktop your URL will link to a Snapchat download page).

Snapchat icon guide: What do the emojis next to friends mean?

If you check your Friends list on Snapchat, you may notice icons/emojis next to some of your contacts, for example, a  or a :

Each of these emojis means something different, and they change over time based on how you interact with that friend. These emojis are private and will only ever be seen by anyone other than you.

Here’s a breakdown of what each emoji means:

• Gold Star  – Someone has replayed this person’s snaps in the past 24 hours.
• Yellow Heart  – You are #1 best friends with each other. You send the most snaps to this person, and they send the most snaps to you.
• Red Heart ❤️ – You have been #1 best friends with each other for two weeks straight.
• Pink Hearts  – You have been #1 best friends with each other for two months straight.
• Baby  – You just became friends with this person.
• Face With Sunglasses  – One of your best friends is one of their best friends. You send a lot of snaps to someone they also send a lot of snaps to.
• Grimacing Face  – Your #1 best friend is their #1 best friend. You send the most snaps to the same person that they do.
• Smirking Face  – You are one of their best friends …but they are not a best friend of yours. You don’t send them many snaps, but they send you a lot.
• Smiling Face  – Another best friend of yours. You send this person a lot of snaps. Not your #1 best friend but they are up there.
• Fire – You are on a Snapstreak! You have snapped this person every day, and they have snapped you back. Increases with the number of consecutive days.
• Hundred - 100 Day Snapstreak. The 100 emoji appears next to the fire when you snap back and forth with someone for one hundred days in a row.

Verified account emojis

If a story is shared by a verified account (usually reserved for well-known public figures, major brands and celebrities), you’ll see a custom emoji next to their name, so you know they’re the real deal!

Emojis for official stories vary from person to person. For example,  the basketball emoji   appears next to official NBA stories, Calvin Harris’ stories are accompanied by a tiger, and DJ Khaled uses the key emoji .

5 Top tips for brands on Snapchat

To bring you the best, most actionable Snapchat tips, we teamed up with Everette Taylor, who gave us the lowdown on how to use Snapchat to deliver value for your business.

1. Bring value through variety of content

With Snapchat, you have to bring value with every piece of content you share, Taylor explains:

Take a minute and think about most of the Snapchat stories you see and how similar the content is. The fact is, for most – originality on Snapchat is lacking. That’s the case for many social media platforms but can be the most apparent on Snapchat due to the nature of the app. That’s the cue to step your game up.

The best way to bring value to users on Snapchat is by providing a variety of content that your users will either find entertaining or helpful information. Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box and take risks. Monotony = loss of interest.

It’s also important to keep Snapchat’s user base in mind when it comes to content creation – 45% of Snapchat users are under 25.

The point is to be fun, creative and experiment. Remember the audience on Snapchat tends to skew to be a lot younger. If users know what to expect from you, they will be a lot less likely to click on your stories which means less impressions for you or your brand. Take to time to strategize a marketing strategy for your Snapchat like you would any other channel or funnel.

In the early days of TV and Radio, if you missed a show, it wasn’t on again. There were no DVRs or on-demand services. Snapchat is much the same, once your story has been live for 24 hours, it’s gone forever.

To keep your content interesting and engaging, you could create a schedule to give your audience an expectation of what’s coming up:

Create custom content, for example having “Motivation Mondays” where you offer inspirational quotes or highlight inspirational stories/people or “Tasty Tuesdays” where you cook a new recipe or review a new restaurant. Whatever you do, just have fun!

2. Create your own Snapchat KPIs

Measuring your performance on social media can be a tough task at times, especially on some of the newer platforms.  And currently, there aren’t any public ways to get analytics or data around your Snapchat account.

So when it comes to measurement on Snapchat, Taylor advises that “a little ingenuity is needed.” 

First thing you want to figure out is VPS, Views Per Snap. In my opinion, this is the “one metric that matters” when it comes to Snapchat. The best way to do this is to calculate the average views for your Snapchat videos each day and record that number in a spreadsheet. You can then start to track the progress of your views daily and begin to set goals.

Alongside Views Per Snap, Taylor also recommends tracking followers and screenshots:

If you have the time and the patience to manually count, you can calculate new follower metrics and figure out your follow rate – daily, weekly, monthly and even annually. This allows you to set acquisition goals as well.

One of the most useful KPIs I’ve come up with screenshots. This shows that people found whatever you posted highly entertaining or valuable.

This leads nicely to the next tip…

3. Make Sure Users Anticipate Important Messages

One of the biggest barriers to entry for brands on Snapchat is figuring out how Snapchat can directly have value for their brand. One of the best ways is to give important messages and announcements on your Snapchat.

If you’re delivering an important message on Snapchat, for example, sharing a URL you’d like your followers to visit, asking them to screenshot it can be an excellent way to drive action.

When it comes to screenshots, Taylor advises giving your followers some warning of what’s coming up:

You have to be smart about how you go about this. You have to make users anticipate something is coming before it comes. Let users know that you’re about to announce something important before you do so or prompt them by saying “screenshot the next snap.” Yep, it’s that simple and can be highly effective.

4. Use Other Social Media to Promote Snapchat

Snapchat doesn’t have a public friends feed or a mechanic that will show people that their friends are viewing and engaging with your content. As such, a great way to build your audience is through your pre-existing followers on other networks, Taylor explained:

One thing I admire about Vine & YouTube influencers is the way they are able to shift their audience to other social media platforms. It’s an impactful tactic if done well. It requires you to be using other social media platforms to promote your Snapchat.

One of the most effective ways to do this is by scheduling posts on Buffer to promote your Snapchat throughout the week. Some platform-specific tips include: making your profile picture of Facebook and Twitter your Snapchat QR code, setting up a pinned tweet on Twitter and pinned post on Facebook promoting your Snapchat, and setting up automated direct messages on Twitter along with a value proposition for people to follow you on Snapchat, etc.

Taylor also recommends taking screenshots from your Snapchat pictures and videos and sharing these on other social networks:

Taking your interesting Snapchat pictures/videos and posting them on other social media platforms with your Snapchat handle is super effective. I’ve found this the most effective on Twitter and Instagram. Also if you’re doing something fun or exciting, you can tell people to follow you to see more. For example, “I’m at *insert event* – follow my Snapchat to check out my adventures.”

Here’s another example of Pepsi promoting their Snapchat lens on facebook:

Get a mind blowing taste of #PepsiMaxCherry with our Snapchat lens for today only! Send us your snaps to PepsiMaxUK to feature on our story! 󾁏

Posted by Pepsi Max on Saturday, 13 February 2016

5. Create your own content to promote your Snapchat

Creating Snapchat-focused content outside of Snapchat is a great way to promote your account:

Many people such as growth expert Morgan Brown and others have realized that one of the best ways to promote your Snapchat brand is to create your own content about Snapchat. This can be lists of best people to follow, best practices and tips, case studies, etc.

If the content is solid, people will share it, and there will be a lot more brand awareness for your Snapchat. Making lists is probably the best way to go about it, this will give you a distribution by influencers who will promote your content in reciprocation.

You can also use your Snapcode, Snapchat username, and profile URL within your content as a way to drive new followers:

A bonus tip with this that I haven’t seen any brands using….yet. That is the use of a Snapchat icon on their content, websites and emails. Snapchat now has a new feature where you can copy a link where people can add you on Snapchat. Including these icons on your content, emails, website and other forms of content could be helpful in building your audience.

4 Snapchat accounts to follow (and what makes them great)

One of the toughest things about getting started on a new social network can be knowing who to follow and learn from. With this in mind, I’d love to share a few Snapchat accounts that are rocking it right now:

Vaynermedia (@vaynermedia)

What they Snap: The Vaynermedia Snapchat account takes followers behind the scenes at the agency and into a day in the life of one of the team members.

Why it works: Snapchat is an amazing way to show the human side of a business and the people behind the brand. By sharing a day in the life on Snapchat, Vaynermedia can build stronger, more authentic relationships with their followers.

Gary Vaynerchuck believes there are two real wins of this approach to Snapchat: “it boosts the internal morale within the agency and connects people across offices and two it makes my employees true practitioners of their craft,” he explained on his Youtube show.

NBA (@nba)

What they Snap: Behind the scenes content from games, game previews, TV schedules (so you always know what you can watch), and much more.

Why it works: Sports fans love to get behind the scenes andSnapchat is the perfect way for the NBA to share authentic, behind the scenes content from events fans would never normally have access to.

Casey Neistat (@caseyneistat)

What he Snaps: Casey Neistat is a well-known Youtuber and filmmaker. Neistat’s Snapchat Stories are super-engaging and feel like vlogs as he invites his followers to follow along as his day unfolds.

Why it works: Neistat’s Snapchat stories are authentic. He lets each story build up naturally, too. Instead of jumping right in at the climax of a story, or the most exciting part of his day, he’ll build it up as his Story progresses.

Check out one of Neistat’s stories below:

DJ Khaled (@djkhaled305)

What he Snaps: DJ Khaled is the king of Snapchat! Throughout his Stories, Khaled entertains his followers by sharing his “keys to success”.

Why it works: DJ Khaled is a huge hit on Snapchat because he lets his personality shine through in his Snaps. He also delivers content based on a set theme, ‘success.’ This means his followers know what to expect when they start viewing one of his Stories.

Sidenote: DJ Khaled’s account became legendary when he shared a Story about being lost at sea on a jet ski.

Bonus: 5 more people and brands to follow

• Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee)
• Eva Longoria (@realevalongoria)
• Product Hunt (@producthuntteam)
• Major League Soccer (@mls)
• Lewis Howes (@lewis_howes)

We’re on Snapchat too, you can connect with us by adding the username ‘buffersnaps’ or by scanning the Snapcode below:

Over to you

I hope you found this post useful and discovered a few new Snapchat features and tricks.

I’d love to send a huge shoutout to Everette Taylor for sharing his awesome tips with us – we’ll be sure to implement some of these in our Snapchat strategy.

You can follow Everette on Snapchat, his username is ‘everettetaylor’ or click this link from a mobile device to add him directly.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on Snapchat. Do you actively use the app? Have you tried using it from a brand perspective? Any tips or tricks you’d like to share?

Please feel free to add your thoughts and experiences in the comments below and I’m excited to jump in and join the conversation.

Thank Getting to Know the Ghost: The Complete Beginners Guide to Snapchat for first publishing this post.