If you’re not convinced about “why” to run ads on Facebook and Instagram I’m going to send you over here first to check out a blog from my mentor George Kao. Before I started working with George, I thought making content was just something you did to “get” clients (even though my content was never really pushy like that) and now I realise that content is an act of service for my audience and my soul service to this life. But that service just blows into the ether if no-one is seeing it right? That’s why I love ads, and George has a great way of explaining it too.
Now, to the work at hand.
You are obviously either ready for ads, working with me on ads or ads curious.
This post is all about the Creative for your ads: the words, images and links.
I recommend running 3 kinds of ads:
- Ads to grow your audience
- Ads that share your content to your existing audience
- Ads that share your current offer to your existing audience
Current client? Skip down to summary >>
Once you have set up your audiences, you can run these ads easily IF you have your content in your Facebook page and Instagram feeds. So this is the first step – get your content up.
Which content?
There are 4-5 kinds of content needed depending on how many ads you want to run so I’ll detail ALL of them here, although you may find you end up only running cool audience ads to Instagram or warm audience ads only on Facebook.
Cool Audience on Facebook
The best content for these ads is a text only post.
Why?
Because the Facebook ads robot understands the behaviour of its users. By that I mean: certain people are likely to click on pretty pictures. Certain types of people are likely to click on ads that take them outside Facebook. And other people are more likely to actually read a text post. So basically if you have a Facebook post that has a great picture people might just be clicking the picture because they like the visual but they’re not actually reading your content. What happens here is you start to amass an audience of people who aren’t genuinely interested in your actual message.
This is the beauty of the text only post. If someone has been bothered to read the post and give it time and actually engage with it by liking it or commenting then you know that person is connected to your authentic message.
You can write quite a long caption but for the sake of your time economy I would encourage you to try to keep it within 2200 words because then you can use the caption on Instagram as well.
And what kind of caption should you write?
The person who sees this ad has basically never seen you or your brand before. They are completely cold to you. However they may be already exposed to messages like yours if you are using interests in your targeting rather than a lookalike. So basically the kind of content you want to share is introducing you and your unique message and also gives some value to the client.
I actually use my free content to my cool audience pretty much like a lead magnet since I’m not really using that strategy at the moment so I give a lot of value in those posts and use them as a teaching post. I recommend trying to be very generous in those posts. See an example here
Cool audience on Instagram
If you have been savvy and kept your caption within 2200 words on your Cool Facebook ad you can definitely use the same caption in your Instagram post however as you know Instagram needs an image.
Similar to the cool ads on Facebook I don’t recommend making a really beautiful picture. I recommend making a simple and brand aligned post. This would pretty much be just text only on a clean background in your brand colours and fonts. See an example here . If you didn’t keep your caption short on Facebook you’ll need a caption for this post – maximum 2200 words. Just like the cool Facebook ad: be generous.
Warm Audience on Facebook – current content
These ads are a lovely way to nurture your existing audience. This will be a mixture of people who have engaged with you before you started running ads as well as all the people who engage with your cool audience ad. This is the beautiful magic of this ads approach: as soon as someone engages with the cool audience post, they instantly become your warm audience. They don’t have to click anything, sign up for anything or go to any websites or lead pages. All they have to do is engage with the cool text post and boom! They’re immediately in your warm audience.
It’s important to love up your warm audience. There’s no point just throwing an offer at them now and then if they haven’t seen you for months and months. And the way the Facebook page algorithm works for businesses, they probably haven’t seen anything of yours for months. So it’s important to share some great content with them. If you’re already posting content as part of your soul-service you will see that some posts get more traction than others. If you notice some posts are doing really well, then that’s a good indicator that this content is probably valuable to your entire audience. If you’ve only just started and you don’t really have much content with engagement yet you can use pretty much any post of yours that you want the audience to see.
So what is the post?
Live video is great to use. You can also share teaching posts with a carousel of images. Basically any post that you know your warm audience would love to see and get value from.
Warm Audience on Instagram – current content
Content on Instagram has a couple of parameters that you need to observe if you want to run that content as an ad. First up you can’t run a live video that you did on Facebook or even an Instagram TV. Video needs to be 60 seconds maximum. So it’s a good practice to start to try to do a value video on Instagram in 60-seconds. I know myself that this is not easy but these are great challenges. It’s a bit like Twitter for video: you will get better at them.
Alternatively you can simply edit a valuable chunk out of your live video from Facebook or any other video and just post a snippet.
Other options would be a teaching style post With an image. Make sure that the caption is no longer than 2200 words. Otherwise go for it. Any type of content that you know we’ll give value to your audience is perfect.
Offers
Now that your audience is connected with you and has been enjoying some of your valuable content it’s time to share your offer. It is perfectly fine to start running offer ads straight away. Even though some of your warm audience are new from the cool audience ads, another chunk of your audience will be warm from your previous content or simply because they engaged with you in the past. So go for it and start running your offer ads right away.
Warm Audience on Facebook – current offer
Offer ads can be video or image with caption. The format doesn’t matter too much as long as you comply with Facebook’s policies around language and personal attributes. This will generally be a traffic ad where we are sending people off to a sign up page or landing page to purchase.
You don’t have to feel weird about sharing your offer. People are looking for help just like yours. They want to connect with you and you are simply bridging that Gap. So go ahead and share your post with love and care.
You can save time by using the same post on Instagram. You need to make sure it is either a 60-minute video or a single image with a caption no longer than 2200 words.
Warm Audience on Instagram – current offer
For your Instagram ads you can use a Facebook post that is either a video no longer than 60 seconds or a single image with a caption with a maximum of 2200 words.
If you don’t have a Facebook post like that, then those other kinds of posts could easily be created on your Instagram account. Just like the Facebook ad, this ad is going to send people to a sign-up page or a landing page to purchase. As long as this post is free from attachment, loving and authentic that is no problem sharing offers with your audience.
Summary:
Cool Audience on Facebook
Text only max 2200 words – teaching something, be generous, these people are new to you.
Cool audience on Instagram
Simple post with minimal text, caption max 2200 words – teaching something, be generous, these people are new to you.
Warm Audience on Facebook – current content
Live video is great, otherwise an image with a great value caption is great.
Warm Audience on Instagram – current content
60-second video is great, otherwise an image with a great value caption is great.
Warm Audience on Facebook – current offer
Image and caption OR video OR live video OR anything really.
Warm Audience on Instagram – current offer
Image and caption OR 60-second video OR anything really.
I hope this post has been helpful. If you have more questions or would like more help from me please reach out and book a freeie chat below.
I acknowledge the Djiringanj people of the Yuin Nation, the custodians of this beautiful land on which I live and work.
I also pays respect to all Elders past & present.
Thank you for taking such good care of the wild, beautiful places of Araganu, the coastline and forests where I get nurtured.
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