Volkswagen Is Using Instagram To Connect With Car Buyers

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Volkswagen of America is hoping to drive consumer engagement for its 2018 Tiguan through the “VW Rule the Road” Instagram experience.

The digital social scavenger hunt incorporates elements from the launch spot titled “The New King,” including the inflatable gorilla, the actress who plays the driver and the Tiguan she races through the city. The experience is part of the car brand’s integrated campaign to launch the new tagline “The New King of the Concrete Jungle.”

Every day at 1 p.m. ET for three weeks, a clue will appear on the daily hunt tile on the @VWRuleTheRoad Instagram page. Using that clue, users will then have to find a hidden Tiguan within the tiles using the carousel feature. There are Tiguan models everywhere, but only one is the right one. Once users find the correct hidden Tiguan, they must take a screenshot of the Tiguan and direct message it to @VWRuleTheRoad for a chance to win a daily prize and a chance to qualify to enter the grand prize drawing. The grand prize consists of a 10-day trip to San Francisco, Miami and New York.

Jennifer Clayton, director of marketing communications and media for Volkswagen of America, told AListDaily that Instagram gives the carmaker access on a one-to-one level with its target audience.

“It gives us an opportunity for deeper engagement with the Volkswagen brand, and extends engagement beyond the typical suite of 30-second TV spots or more traditional digital plays,” Clayton explained. “The exciting creative opportunity was to give people the chance to discover, explore and participate in the story—in an experience we built just for them, in a way that’s not been done before.”

The scavenger hunt is entirely contained within Instagram. Daily prizes range anywhere from $50 to $250, depending on the day, and include brands like Amazon. The idea came from looking at the Tiguan launch campaign as a whole and figuring out how to leverage the idea to fit with how people use social.

“We decided to create a digital scavenger hunt around New York City to further cement our new Tiguan position,” Clayton said. “Rule the Road was created so people could visit, explore and conquer the concrete jungle all through their phones.”

Clayton said Instagram has evolved to become increasingly necessary to maintain relevance through an integrated voice on all platforms, especially for the car category, where the majority of the shopping process happens digitally.

“It’s very important for the brand to assert our point of view and positioning in social,” Clayton said before diving deeper into their target demographic profile.

“The Tiguan target is status conscious, and more likely lives in an urban area because at their current life stage, they’re hyper-focused on their career,” Clayton explained. “They’re trying to make it to the top of their profession to build a life that impresses those around them. They’re constantly learning about new corners of culture via podcasts, art galleries, comedy clubs, concerts and the newest hit shows. But they’re not all serious. Tiguan people love exploring in real life too—from skiing, to attending professional sports games, to traveling . . . The Tiguan audience uses their phone for everything, and Instagram for entertainment, so we created a social experience that meets them where they already are,” she said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=ZxSua7cV-tw

Volkswagen has blanketed broadcast TV with new Tiguan commercials featuring the inflatable gorilla. The spot further drives the Instagram activation with a second-screen lift, Clayton said. They are also running in-feed paid posts on Instagram that drive to the ‘VWRuleTheRoad’ profile.

So far Clayton has seen a positive reaction to both the inflatable gorilla and the actress driving the Tiguan.

“People are deeply engaged in the experience and fully understand how the game works,” Clayton said. “The early days have shown that the requirements of the game are well understood, and people are excited and awaiting the new clues each day—and they’re actively engaging to win the prizes. Early insights from Instagram show that the engaged audience, who are coming back each day, are closely aligned with the Tiguan demo . . . Obviously, it’s impossible to show how driving a Volkswagen feels digitally, but we wanted to assert our brand positioning by creating an experience that was fun and exploratory.”

https://youtu.be/rak9k0nO0_w

‘Forge Of Empires’ Installs Get Big Boost From Snapchat App

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Whether it be on Facebook or less traditional platforms like Pinterest, InnoGames is always looking for new ways to experiment with social campaigns.

As part of this experimentation, the MTG-owned game developer partnered with Adglow to promote the Forge of Empires mobile game on Snapchat using the install feature, which produced very impressive results.

Marcus Burke, InnoGames performance marketing manager

According to the study published by the two companies, the Snapchat app—with the install feature in beta in the UK at the time—brought in 166 percent more post view installs than any other video platform. This may be an early indicator of greater success on the platform as it grows and InnoGames explores further uses with it.

“We ran the campaigns for three months, targeting males 21 or older and gamers with a focus on our game, Forge of Empires,” InnoGames performance marketing manager Marcus Burke told AListDaily. “The campaign showed users a snippet of our TV commercial and prompted them to ‘play free now.’ They would then have the opportunity to swipe up and were conveniently redirected to our App Store listing so they could directly download the game.”

Burke explained that InnoGames tries to be first movers when it comes to new marketing activity.

“Snapchat gave us the opportunity to be the first advertiser using their app install product in the UK,” he said.

“The campaign was used for user acquisition, and we mainly engaged with players through the app afterward,” explained Burke. “There’s no engagement activity running on Snapchat so far.”

Despite the successful test campaign, Burke noted that Snapchat’s ad products are still in its early phases in terms of sophistication when compared to other social channels. InnoGames helped test the platform’s capabilities to target a broad range of gamers in hopes of finding a profitable audience. But that begs the question of whether this early success can be replicated on other video platforms.

“One of our biggest strengths [we have] at InnoGames is our marketing assets,” said Burke. “Whether it is Snapchat or another social media platform, a campaign needs to be visually appealing to catch the attention of our target audience. In this case, we saw the success through the combination of the video and the app feature. In this sense, replicating success in other social media channels is about matching the correct asset to the needs of the platform.”

As InnoGames continues to experiment with social media campaigns, Burke—who said that Snapchat was “growing up” in terms of its ad products—shared his thoughts about whether the install boost seen on Snapchat could be sustained or grown over the long-term, or if it had more to do with the novelty of the feature.

“We are constantly trying new features with our partners to be ahead of the marketing trends,” he said. “We will continue to test Snapchat and its features to see whether we can scale our results long-term and to other markets.”

Pinterest Gives Advertisers Better ROI With New Targeting Options

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Pinterest isn’t a social network—it’s a search engine, and its latest update to its advertising platform is only furthering the transition. Now, marketers can choose from 5,000 different interest categories when promoting their pins.

Pinterest only offered 400 targeting options last year, but with their acquisition of ad-tech firm URX, they’ve greatly expanded their Taste Graph recommendation platform to improve both user and advertiser experience. Ranging from broad strokes like “french food”  and “vintage style,” to more esoteric categories like “mid-century modern” and “neutral nursery,” to catch-alls such as “plants,” the ideation platform boasts 50 percent higher click-through rates and 20 percent more cost-effective campaigns, citing Nordstrom as a case example.

This latest feature comes as the brand attempts to close the gap between social network and search engine. “People don’t come to see what their friends are doing,” Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann said last year. “Instead, they come to Pinterest to find ideas to try, figure out which ones they love, and learn a little bit about themselves in the process.”

Earlier in September, the company announced it had reached 200 million monthly users, unveiling six new methods for campaign effectiveness measurement in June. The digital ad market is growing, and Pinterest is beginning to offer advertisers tools competitive with giants of the market Google and Amazon’s keyword advertising offerings.

Brands like InnoGames have used Pinterest to great success in recent months, and from demographic data alone the platform is attractive for brands seeking millennial audiences. This latest update serves to further shore up the company’s $500 million revenue prediction for 2017.

Facebook CMO Explains The Power Of Connection

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The future of everything—marketing, technology and even journalism—is connection and community, Facebook vice president and chief marketing officer Gary Briggs told an assembly of marketers.

(Editor’s note: Briggs spoke at Mumbrella360, a marketing conference held this June in Australia. The keynote conversation was published for the first time earlier this week on YouTube.)

In the hour-long Q&A session with Mumbrella founder Tim Burrowes, Briggs expounded at length on topics ranging from Facebook’s focus on mobile to his favorite Louis C.K. bits, but one subject remained the focus—as the world unites closer together, so too must marketers. Briggs spoke multiple times about the increasing need for cooperation between departments to succeed in the digital age.

“The big part of what you’re focusing on is trying to teach the company to think in marketing terms, often without using the terminology,” Briggs said regarding the reluctance of many young tech companies to embrace established marketing practices. “The agencies I find are doing well are changing the working model. It’s why you’re seeing consulting firms come into the agency business; they’re more used to cohabitating with companies. Everybody gets better: the client gets better, the agency gets better the closer you’re working and the less you have this divide between the two groups.”

The marketing executive, who’s formerly held senior roles with Google, PepsiCo, IBM and Motorola and been with Facebook for the last four years, went on discuss his predictions for internal streamlining.

“This distinction between a brand marketer and a direct marketer is going away. The best marketers on Facebook today are the ones who don’t make that distinction,” said Briggs. “In broad terms, the communications teams and the marketing teams report separately to respective executives, but we are oftentimes, in terms of anything we’re working on, two in a box.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=X0Bl2QPaz-k

Part of the reason for this growing connection is the speed at which the economy has changed.

“Nearly 100 percent of our revenue now comes from products that did not exist five years ago. That’s how fast mobile has moved,” Briggs said. “This will happen again. The shift to mobile will be much like the shift to other platforms and other types of user experiences.”

Briggs spoke with pride about how quickly his company has shifted its focus in the past, citing the flexibility of Facebook’s internal teams and encouraged others to do so too.

“One of the reasons we’ve insourced a good amount of creative into our company . . . is speed. Our creatives are working hand-in-hand with project managers on advertising,” Briggs said. “The people who run the marketing organization don’t just sit next to the brand people with the data people parked in a different building. The analytics people are not in a technology organization, they are all together. It doesn’t matter if they are brand or direct marketing, what matters is the results in driving the business for the company on behalf of the customers they serve.”

But beyond connection between departments in a single business, and Briggs emphasized the importance of connection with consumers most of all.

“A lot of times people really do identify with key brands in their life,” he said. “Our job as marketers is to be part of the conversation with people, and put ourselves in conversations in ways that people want.”

When asked about the how best to implement altered reality marketing, Briggs added, “Think again about the target, think again about what kind of experience they’re having . . . You have to ask why—what is the kind of conversation you want to have with people?”

Despite the rapid advances that Briggs anticipates will affect the marketing and advertising industries, he remained optimistic about the future.

“There are times when you know too much, and as such massive consumers of media and technology, we sometimes know a little bit too much. People are more optimistic. People want to see one another succeed and grow and be fulfilled,” he said. “I find that deeply heartening.”

“Are we building a world we want to live in?” Briggs asked, regarding Facebook’s intentions to expand internet coverage for the five billion global citizens currently unconnected. “A key part of that, for us is community.”

 

Audience Profiling With AI Emboldens Personal Messaging

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Editor’s note: Robin Boytos is the VP of Ayzenberg Insights. AListDaily is the editorial and publishing arm of the Ayzenberg Group, the parent company of Ayzenberg Insights.

What if you could tell whether a daughter used her mom’s public social media account? What if you could tell if the person who commented on your post was a family man, or if the person who liked your page was quirky?

If you’re a content marketer, this knowledge is extremely helpful. You’re able to gear your communications to different people in ways that resonate.

As an analytics professional, I’ve recently discovered the power of audience profiling as a tool to understand consumer behaviors. With the emergence of AI and machine learning processes, computing capabilities have soared, and now analytics is catching up and using this information to create content and marketing strategies.

Social media is the largest source of unsolicited consumer opinions, giving us loads of information on target consumers ages 13 to 34—those who use social media the most. We’re presented with a well of information for marketers to better understand their consumers via audience profiling.

Audience profiling takes textual data from social media posts and translates it into personalities, needs and values. Audience profiling also gives us information about what kinds of branded and non-branded content our audience responds to, when they typically interact on social media and, most importantly, gives us insight into why they are more apt to respond to certain types of content.

The benefits of audience profiling are extensive. We can now segment consumers not just by demographics and general reported interests, but by personality and demonstrated behaviors, too. And this information allows us to develop creative that resonates more personally with the targeted audiences.

For me, the most exciting part of audience profiling is seeing a post like this:

This one is easy—between image recognition and understanding social speech we know this person is a nerd and quirky.

But what about this?

This language is not so obvious. The way that the speech is written indicates a few things: he takes pleasure in life, he is highly curious, open to experiences and willing to try new things. Granted, this is just one post, and it takes much more than one post worth of speech to define one’s personality, but you get the point.

So how does this help me as a content marketer?  Let’s take these opinionated political posts:

https://twitter.com/Chelseashow/status/905785230056841218

Old school marketing tells me I should feed this person with political ads because they’re talking about politics, right? But new school marketing with audience profiling tells me this person is a leader, challenges authority and has a high degree of emotionality.

That means we should serve them confident, bold messaging—maybe something that speaks to them as a leader. When I match that with the fact that they also liked a post about shoes several months ago, we have bold, confident messaging tied to a shoe brand. I think that’s powerful.

What if someone’s social speech revealed they have an impulsive personality, and they just received a promotion at their job? Their emotions are on high—hitting them with an ad at that moment is a recipe for success.

The industry isn’t that far yet, but with ever new computing capabilities, the possibilities are endless.

 

Study: When It Comes To Purchase Intent, Earned Media Matters

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New research by Northeastern University indicates that messaging on owned media does not increase purchase intent, while earned social media has a notable effect.

The study, led by Koen Pauwels, analyzed the stock data, social media posts, and consumer mindset metrics for 45 brands over 270 days to measure brand awareness, purchase intent, customer satisfaction and stock performance.

On average, increasing a brand’s social media output on owned media by 10 percent saw a 7 percent increase in brand awareness, a 4 percent increase in customer satisfaction but a 3 percent decrease in purchase intent. The same percentage increase in earned social media led to jumps in all three categories: 12, 3, and 6 percent, respectively.

“Consumers look to their peers before making purchasing decisions, which is why earned social media is so valuable,” said Pauwels. “Both investors and consumers distrust companies who boast about themselves because it’s hard to know what weaknesses they’re trying to hide.”

Not all brands are created equal in this regard, however. Pauwel’s findings indicate that brands with superior reputation or credibility enjoy much more effective owned media than ones dealing with negative public perceptions, though did not offer hard figures in the report.

Northeastern’s research also found that purchase intent had a greater influence on a firm’s stock value than consumer satisfaction: while both increase stock market returns, only purchase intent was shown to decrease unsystematic risk, the risk tied exclusively to a particular stock and not the surrounding market.

These findings support the activities by conversational brands such as MoonPie and Wendy’s, and suggests that companies use owned media to increase their own perceived quality, rather than directly attempt to drive purchase decisions.

Major Brands Leverage Twitter Influencers To Prep For Fall

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Editor’s note: Julie Truong is an analyst for Ayzenberg Insights. AListDaily is the editorial and publishing arm of the Ayzenberg Group, the parent company of Ayzenberg Insights. For more on Ayzenberg Insights, visit ayzenberg.com/insights. 

Advertising becomes increasingly competitive on Twitter around the end of the summer, and major brands rely on smart marketing and strategic distribution techniques to stand out. Here are two case studies of brands using influencers on Twitter to reach their targets in an effective way.

#ClearlyConfident

Back-to-school is a key campaign for marketers in the retail space. To leverage this trend, Walgreens and Clearasil partnered up for a timely campaign aiming to help teens feel #ClearlyConfident. This campaign educated followers on the importance of skincare and doubled as a helpline for teens and parents to learn more about Clearasil’s benefits and building teens’ confidence.

The brands reached out to influencers Makeba Giles and Jenny Ingram to help promote Clearasil skincare products through social media and blog posts, sharing content as parental advice to help combat their teen’s acne and prepare them for the first day of school.

Within a short period, #ClearlyConfident gained the attention of moms, mommy bloggers, and parents interested in fashion and beauty.

Clearasil has been inactive on Twitter since 2016, so leveraging popular influencers—particularly within the parental demographic—and using ads to boost their work on social media was key.

To amplify the hype, Walgreens contributed to the campaign by retweeting influencers’ posts—infographics, sweepstakes and positive advice. Although the campaign ran throughout the month, #ClearlyConfident trended briefly in the United States and spiked conversation to 4,800 mentions.

#LiveUnlimited

Sprint’s #LiveUnlimited campaign successfully took an influencer and community management approach. Taking a leap with influencer marketing, the mobile service provider strategically collaborated with their US and Latin teams to hit both markets with their message, which involved Latino/American influencers who fit the goal of the campaign to #LiveUnlimited.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvIkFIdblCI&feature=youtu.be

In this campaign video, the brand diversified their social influencers from various lifestyle sectors to inspire consumers to live life their own way. The influential cast: Lele Pons, content creator; Gerard Adams, motivational entrepreneur; Bradley Martyn, bodybuilder; Rachel Cook, model; and Prince Royce, musician. In the video, Sprint focused on driving their narrative by letting the talent be themselves.

Sprint’s community managers were also highly involved, responding to their audience and their talent’s audience with playful responses to their tweets.

Sprint’s campaign video was broadcast on Sprint, Sprint Latino, and the influencers’ social media channels as a method to further expand their messaging into other markets. The campaign began in late August and trended in the United States for 30 minutes, resulting in 6,311 mentions.

How Instagram’s Funnel Nabs Engaged Users

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Instagram is hoping that if a picture says a thousand words, it will fill up 600 million shopping carts. That’s why the social platform is experimenting with new ways to convert inspiration into sales.

One way is the “Shop Now” button that takes users to a brand’s website. Apparel, jewelry and fashion brands in the US are participating in the Instagram test to gauge user interest and potential ROI.

Instagram is also experimenting with a tool that tags products that same way one might tag a friend. Twenty brand partners have signed on to try the new feature, including JackThreads, Warby Parker, Kate Spade and J. Crew.

Call to action is the next natural step for the Facebook-owned site, especially since users already use Instagram as inspiration for purchases. Of the 13 million total interactions during New York Fashion Week in 2016, 97 percent took place on Instagram, according to a report by L2.

According to recent research from fashion brand Dana Rebecca Designs, 72 percent of Instagram users say they have made a fashion- or beauty-related purchase after seeing a product on the social network. Forty percent of surveyed users also say Instagram was the social media platform that most impacted their shopping habits.

Retailers turn to Instagram not only to inspire but to look for inspiration, themselves—noting and reacting to trends as they happen.

“Savvy retailers look at hashtags to understand street style and what’s cool right now,” Apu Gupta, CEO of visual commerce platform Curalate, told Digiday. “It’s not about your own products—it’s about gaining insight into what people are wearing and how they wear them.”

This kind of symbiotic relationship between brands and users helps keep the inspiration flowing without being disruptive to the natural flow of discovery.

Eighty percent of all Instagram users follow at least one brand on the platform and 41 percent either follow or would follow brands to take advantage of perks and giveaways, says Instagram analytics platform Iconosquare.

While fashion and beauty are natural fits for a visually-driven social network, other brands take advantage of Instagram’s engaged users in creative ways. Sparkling water brand LaCroix appeals to millennials through its easy-going brand message and partners with influencers to spread the word.

In fact, influencer marketing on the platform is booming. Estimates place this year’s Instagram influencer market at just over $1 billion. At the current growth rate, the platform could reach $2 billion by 2019.

Juniper Research predicts that over two billion mobile phone or tablet users will make some sort of mobile commerce transaction by the end of 2017 and over three billion by the year 2021. Studies have shown that more than half of consumers research purchases online before committing and for users on Instagram, seeing is believing.

“Our partnership with Instagram has been very successful,” says Mary Beech, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Kate Spade New York. “Traditionally, our customer had turned to Instagram for inspiration, and we’re seeing that she’s reacting positively to the new shopping experience, which allows her to seamlessly tap and shop the product—going from inspiration to information to purchase in just a few steps—we’re excited to see where the feature continues to take us.”

How Beefing Is The Secret Sauce For Wendy’s On Social Media

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The Twittersphere loves following someone whose feed is filled with scorching hot takes—not you, Donald!

More times than not, that doesn’t include brands—whose lukewarm tone from corporate bots shilling products and services tend to turn users away with a one-way ticket straight toward the unfollow button.

But not Wendy’s, who’ve been bringing the beef through a menu of fearless manners—namely through a fresh and tasty persona on Twitter that borders between cheekily entertaining and trolling.

James Bennett, senior director of media and social for Wendy’s, told AListDaily that its celebrated online brand image was born a few years ago when its leadership team and agency partners decided that it was time to not to take themselves too seriously anymore. So, they realigned the quick service restaurant’s tone and voice into something more sharp and playful.

“Wendy’s was founded on a commitment to serve fresh, quality food, but that’s not to say that Wendy’s doesn’t like to share its personality,” Bennett said. “Wendy’s definitely has a witty sense of humor, but we try and keep our interactions lighthearted. If something feels like it’s veering too far away from that, we step back and reevaluate the communications.”

Bennett says the brand has put plenty of work into its flame-throwing voice, identifying what and how it should grill—er—communicate with fans.

“When it comes to our products, we banter in the spirit of food quality and try to keep our focus around that,” he says. “Social media is a learning ground for our team and we’re always challenging ourselves to be true to the Wendy’s voice. We try and inspire two things on social media—awareness on what Wendy’s was founded on, and genuine relationships and interactions with fans.”

Having a relevant voice on social media is just a fraction of the work quick service restaurants are putting into reinventing their images for younger consumers who have deviated away from the drive-thru for more healthier, hip and more Instagrammable options.

Earlier this spring, when 16-year-old Carter Wilkerson asked the restaurant how many retweets it would take to earn him a year’s supply of free chicken nuggets, Wendy’s gave him a seemingly impossible number: 18 million. In short order, #NuggsForCarter was born, and the saucy story went viral.

“No one could have predicted the phenomenon that was #NuggsForCarter,” Bennett says. “But we feel part of the secret to why it got so big was that we let go of the reigns and let Carter do his thing without us getting in the way or commercializing it. He’s a great kid, and we’ve enjoyed getting to know his entire family. We enjoy seeing our customers’ passion for the brand and that’s just not something we can put a dollar value behind.”

Analysts calculated that the #NuggsForCarter Twitterstorm meant over $7 million in earned media value for Wendy’s.

Of course, not all back-and-forth banter with Wendy’s, named after the daughter of chain founder David Thomas, ends with a sweet story. Quick service brethren have felt the fiery wrath and the no-punches-pulled burns that Red has brutally brought.

“With the infinite number of conversations taking place on social, there’s some risk determining which space to play in,” Bennett says. “There’s definitely a line of what is right for Wendy’s brand and voice. Our job is to ensure we’re going after the right subject matter, and that our tone and words contribute to a unified voice.”

With all of the highs, there are lows as well—the brand has fumbled interactions from time-to-time with its salty zingers. In response to a customer earlier this year, the company posted a meme of Pepe the Frog, a reaction meme that was adopted as a white nationalist symbol and was deemed a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League.

Bennett says the brand’s foremost lesson since evolving with its overall voice and direction—which is, as the cool kids say, “savage AF”—is learning that they’re comfortable in their own skin as being purpose-driven and confident with their social interactions.

“It’s important to our team that Wendy’s interjects when appropriate and contributes to conversations that we can authentically be a part of,” Bennett says. “There are a variety of cultural interests and passions on the team that allow us to be relevant on lots of topics. But what it really comes down to is that we trust each other and have fun together—that’s what makes our campaigns successful.”

https://twitter.com/Fraxtil/status/816056124713488384

Marketers are increasingly using feedback from their communities to influence their products, and Wendy’s says that’s definitely true for the restaurant chain, as it frequently take cues from the over two million fans they engage with on Twitter.

“It’s one of the reasons we’re so concerned with how we approach our fans,” Bennett says. “We’ve found success by engaging with our customers in a very human way—finding out their likes, dislikes and genuine interests. This means we listen to fans to foster an interactive connection.”

In the past, Wendy’s has even created spots based off of fan engagement from tweets by tapping the likes of Nick Lachey to croon, “Pretzel Bacon Cheeseburger Love Songs.”

“We’ve had to find the right balance of talking about our brand while respecting customers’ space and engaging them in conversations they actually want to have with us,” Bennett says. “Our team tries to keep the momentum building from within. With so much content out there, of course there’s inspiration everywhere, but it’s Wendy’s hint of sass that we compete against. It’s like we’re constantly trying to one-up our last witty remark.”

Instagram Stories Expands Engagement, Reach Options For Brands

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In another move to make Instagram Stories more attractive to advertisers, Facebook has unveiled a suite of new tools available for businesses using the platform.

The update focuses primarily on ease of use, allowing brands to use Facebook’s Canvas ad platform and seamlessly convert their existing Stories into ads.

By enabling the mobile-focused Canvas format on Instagram, Facebook has made it easier for brands to create engagement with flashy, interactive ads. More importantly, the move allows advertisers to quickly and easily produce content they can port to Facebook and Instagram News Feed ads as well.

“Marketers are able to use the creative versatility of Canvas to tell compelling brand and product stories,” the social platform wrote on its site. “This seamless extension of the fullscreen experience allows advertisers to capture the attention of customers with just a single ad.”

Alongside this is the announcement that Facebook will allow brands to unite their campaigns on Stories with existing campaigns on Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network. A split-test by Procter and Gamble’s SK-II brand found that they achieved a 30 percent increase in reach among its target audience through a cohesive campaign using Stories, as opposed to Instagram and Facebook feeds alone. User engagement with Instagram videos is growing quickly this year increasing 53 percent from 2016, as compared to 46 percent for photos.

Facebook is also expanding creative tools for advertisers by allowing them to use Instagram’s native image and video editing tools in Stories ads. According to the company’s internal data, more than half of businesses on Instagram have taken advantage of the Stories feature to post their own content, and the latest update permits them to upload their existing content onto the platform directly—a boon to smaller businesses.

“This uploading tool has made it easier for us to create ads that feel native to the platform, and allows us to more easily repurpose assets that we create for our organic content,” Angela Hanks, Sugarfina’s social media manager, said in the post.

At 250 million daily users, Instagram Stories is proving to be a powerful platform for businesses of all sizes to expand their audience, and the newly released tools are only further democratizing access for up-and-coming brands.