Facebook Tests Cross-Platform Ads on Instagram to Attract Millennials

With new platforms and features popping up each day, social media platforms are clamoring for the coveted user base of millennials, with Instagram emerging as a leader.

Bloomberg reports that Facebook’s growth has slowed, leading the platform to investigate new cross-promotional strategies to tap into Instagram’s millennial user base. When Facebook acquired Instagram for $715 million in 2012, Instagram relied on Facebook’s relationships with advertisers and operational infrastructure to boost growth. Instagram’s millennial-heavy user base has prompted Facebook recently began testing cross-promotional strategies on Instagram to draw more traffic to Facebook, which one user called a “cheap trick.”  

Hakika Dubose, Founder/CEO of Kika Stretch Studios and the KIKA Method®, says that even though Instagram now feeds into Facebook, she still feel that there is a huge difference between the two, and that she finds herself “making a complete shift towards Instagram, because it gives me more creative control as a franchise owner."

As more users find this advertising tactic invasive, will others step away from Facebook?