You put in the hard work to conquer your Facebook ads.

You’ve A/B tested, figured out your target audiences, mastered lead generation, and you can finally run successful campaigns without a hitch.

So when it comes time to start expanding your business’ brand on social media, it can feel like you’re going back to square one.

With Instagram, the good news is that you don’t have to start from square one.

Since Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012, many of the back-end features like targeting are compatible with what you already know from running campaigns on Facebook.

And the rest? Well, we’re here to get you up and running in no time.

Keep Your Images High Quality, and Focus on the Product

As a general rule, with Facebook, it is always best to show faces. Faces draw people into ads because facial recognition and our ability to read moods and emotions are essential aspects of communication. It’s hardwired into us—there’s a specific part of the brain that responds only to faces, and nothing else. In many cases, on Facebook, a smiling face is all you need to draw attention.

But on Instagram, showcasing faces is not guaranteed to be the most eye-catching strategy. Great Instagram ads position the product and use that to draw you in.

Even ads that do show people are foregrounding the product.

Instagram is a highly visual platform, unlike on Facebook, where links, video, texts posts, and other forms of content are competing for your attention alongside images. If you’re selling a product, you can skip the stock images of smiling faces. You need a high-quality image that showcases your product and will stand out in a sea of curated images.

Cut Down on the Text

Obviously, Facebook ads rely on visuals as the cornerstone of any campaign, right?

Wrong.

On Facebook, images and video aren’t really the main attraction. They’re only part of it, as demonstrated in this NyQuil & DayQuil ad, which uses photo, illustration, and design, but relies on text to tell a story. It even has small print instructions in the corner: “Read each label. Use as directed. Keep out of reach of children.” The share text offers a $1 Off coupon.

Compare that to DayQuil’s Instagram ad. Here you see the exact same image of the DayQuil box, which takes up about the same amount of real estate in each ad.

The key difference is that this ad is telling a story without words.

Instead of telling you that cold and flu are spiking in San Francisco, DayQuil is presenting a curated image that caters to a specific buyer persona. If you’re an outdoorsy creative professional who needs to get over a cold to go out and face the cold, DayQuil can help you with that.

When you’re working on an Instagram campaign, think about how you can convey information without overloading on text. Who are you trying to appeal to? What might draw them in? Again, Instagram users are there for the images, so use them to tell a story.

How Can Hashtags Help?

Hashtags are much less popular on Facebook than on social media platforms like Twitter, which uses them to categorize content. According to experts, overusing hashtags on Facebook might actually lead to a drop off in engagement — you will look out of touch with your audience. The “less is more” approach is the right way to go here.

Instagram, on the other hand, is big on hashtags. The platform is set up to facilitate them in a way that Facebook simply isn’t. With the bulk of Instagram users on mobile, hashtags are an important part of the user’s experience. You click on a hashtag, and you’re instantly connected to a wide audience that interested in the same thing as you.

People can use Instagram hashtags to form communities, while marketers can use them to find and connect with audiences, generate conversation, and build their brands.

On Instagram, Smirnoff is using three hashtags in two different ways. They’re connecting with general audiences that are already there (#Playoffs and #Recipe). They’re also trying to build up their own audience that’s #GameDayReady with Smirnoff crushed ice cocktails.

When thinking about how to incorporate hashtags into your own campaigns, look around on Instagram and see how other brands are using hashtags. Look at what’s popular or trending to get your ad in front of a receptive audience.

Prioritizing Calls-To-Action as Lead Generation

Tried and true lead magnets on Facebook like PDFs and eBooks are very difficult to bring over to Instagram. Audiences browsing for lifestyle engagement aren’t going to be so interested in your eBook filled with the latest and best practices of your industry.

Lead generation on Instagram is more about nudging users along with calls-to-action like “Get Quote,” “Install Now, or “Sign Up.”

These CTAs are widely used on Facebook, and they’re particularly well suited for mobile-friendly Instagram.

CTAs on Instagram are going to be effective in encouraging sign-ups and purchases. They’re the direct link from your post to your product or website that you can’t get in an Instagram description, which makes them a powerful tool for the platform.

Targeting Tactics

As on Facebook, Instagram allows you to target users by location, demographic, interests, and actions, or use custom or Lookalike Audiences. If you’ve worked on a lot of Facebook campaigns, then good news! Targeting on Instagram will feel very familiar to you.

While the principles of targeting are more or less the same on both platforms, Instagram is especially good for snooping around other accounts and replicating or overlapping audiences with similar brands.

Think of it as the manual way to target an audience. Find accounts that have a similar aesthetic, product, or focus as your own. You look at their followers, follow some of them, and like their posts. All that engagement with people in your target demographic (who is interested in products similar to yours) will hopefully generate more followers and business on your end.

Making the Leap to Instagram

The ease of linking up Facebook campaigns and target audiences with Instagram shouldn’t entice you to just republish the same thing twice.

There are real differences between the two platforms that you need to know to launch a successful campaign.

But you also don’t have to be scared to make the leap.

By combining your Facebook call-to-action and targeting prowess and adding in striking visuals, you’re well on your way to replicating success on Instagram.