There is no doubt the opportunity Instagram proposes for advertisers is huge, as we saw in a post last week, but whenever a new advertising platform becomes available many advertisers  will agree it’s a blessing and a curse. While it is an opportunity to discover a new revenue stream will help you drive business results, there is an inevitable struggle in finding the capacity to quickly master the channel in order to drive results.

So how quickly can you become an expert at running Instagram ads?

The good news is if you already have Facebook advertising experts in your team, the ramp-up time for Instagram is extremely quick. Facebook have incorporated Instagram as another placement that’s available when you build a Facebook campaign, either with Salesforce or with Facebook natively. That means your ad teams can use the same tools and campaign build process for Instagram that they are already using for Facebook today.

So can advertisers switch on Instagram and expect their same Facebook approach to work? Unfortunately, that would be a little too naive. Consumers go to Instagram for a fundamentally different experience than when they’re on Facebook. Instagram users like to consume rich, well-crafted content that interests, inspires, and emotes. In order to succeed advertisers will need learn how to make their creative messages align with the content Instagram users are accustomed to seeing and expect when they visit the platform.

Here are four tips you can use to ensure you take the right approach with your Instagram ads.

1. Branding

Include branding within your image or video so the audience can tie your message back to your brand. If you advertise at scale and deliver your ads to millions of users, more often than not the audience won’t be followers of your Instagram account and thus will be unfamiliar with your posts. When running an ad campaign it’s therefore important that when you reach Instagram users you allow them to recognize who you are and the brand that you’re promoting.

There are a number of techniques that will allow you to accomplish this including displaying your logo, signature brand colors, or using product placement.

2. Concept-Driven

When developing your Instagram creatives you should think carefully about the message or ‘1,000 words’ that you are trying to tell and if the image or video you are going to use conveys that message.

3. Well-crafted

The rise of the smartphone and their high-powered cameras has given millions of people around the world the ability to share beautiful rich imagery and video. Instagram users love to see and engage with this rich content. There are a number of tactics that you can use to ensure you deliver high standard creative, including using the recommended pixel size, applying Instagram filters, center your images, and apply appropriate hashtags.

4. Creative testing

When you run an Instagram advertising campaign you are given a special privilege to do creative iteration tests at scale. When you build an Instagram ad campaign you can launch and test many different creative variations simultaneously promoting the same message or concept. These various iterations will never be published against your Instagram account. This means you can quickly learn the best way to convey your message and engage your audience without spamming your Instagram followers. Salesforce Social.com allows you to quickly implement a creative iteration test that you can optimize in real time and gain invaluable insights into what concepts drive the best results for your campaign objective.

For more information about how to get started on Instagram today, check out our Instagram Webinar.