In March this year, Instagram hit the magical figure of 200 million active users. With 75 million daily active users and 43% of all brands posting each day, Instagram definitely feels like a platform that brands should sink their teeth into. And so they did.
With brands embracing digital platforms other than Facebook, complications arise. Where do you post which content? Should you look to sell to both places? How will your fans stay in touch with the updates on both platforms? Should you promote one platform on the other or does that get too confusing? Will people feel overwhelmed if I ask them to follow my brand on more than one platform?
They’re all viable questions, ones that have different answers depending on who you are and what your brand stands for.
That brings us to an important discussion today, one that I’ve been part of plenty of times in the last couple of months. Should a brand connect their Instagram account to their Facebook page? And how?
At first, everyone thinks about how to post content from Instagram to Facebook. After all, photos get enagagement on Facebook too – so why not? If you’re creating visual content for one platform, why not also post it on another platform? Expecting the same result by posting the same content on different platforms is a mistake that most digital marketing rookies make, nothing to be ashamed of.
So what’s the solution?
How do you indeed, showcase your Instagram content on a Facebook page? And why should you do it?
- To let your Facebook fans that you have an Instgram profile and that they have the choice to follow you on Instagram if you’d like
- To showcase Instagram content to your Facebook audience
- To let your fans know that they have multiple platforms that they can reach out to you on
- To showcase photographs that are relevant to your audience, pulled via relevant hashtags
The above is a page app that pulls out images that are tagged with #Elvis on Instagram and showcases them on a Facebook page. You can take a look at the live version here.
So, is this a good idea? In my mind, yes. It doesn’t hurt. You’re not thrusting the fact to your fans that you want them to follow you on Instagram, and you’re not spamming their newsfeed with posts about your Instagram content.
It’s a silent app that stays on your Facebook page, and you can get your fans to visit it by pointing it out to them every now and then, or letting them discover it whenever they land on your page. I made the above app using this plug and play tool, the Instagram app for Facebook pages is free to try for 7 days, after which pricing begins at $1/month. Not a bad price to pay for something so useful.
Consider this, you’re running a Facebook page for motorcycle enthusiasts, pulling images from Instagram that are around motorcycles, motorcycle repair, riding circuits, tips and tricks to work with motorcycles – they’d work really well. User generated content around motorcycles pulled publicly from Instagram – of course people would like to look at the collection. Even if you’re not showing off your own Instagram profile, you’re helping your fans find interesting and useful content on Instagram which they might not have access to if they’re only present on Facebook.
Bottom line – Yes, you should connect a brand’s Instagram profile to its Facebook page. But how you do it, and how you execute it, that’s what matter in the end.
