Having taken off at a rocket speed, Instagram surpassed twitter users in no time. With the audience base of 300+ million users, this social media platform has surely come a long way and is getting ready to step up their game. Following the footprints of its powerhouse, Facebook, Instagram has opened its advertising option to all marketers. The initiative is expected to bring in an additional $1.3 bn revenue.
Sooner or later, commercialization of Instagram was inevitable as they had been testing their ad format with a few chosen marketers for quite some time. With advertisement open to all, marketers are warming up to pounce upon the opportunity presented before them. Gone are the days when you used to own your own feeds. Change in the ad format means that any business- from your local grocery store to retail chains- can now post their ads in your profile page.
Powering small businesses
The news of Instagram’s ad format change is already creating huge waves in market. Considering the huge transformative potential, small businesses are planning their strategies on how to target Instagram to their best use. Using the same facebook technology, marketers are provided with plenty of objectives to meet their goals. With user targeting also available on basis of the demographics and interests, it is now the advertisers job to grab the opportunity and make full use of it.
From driving website visits to promoting your brand- the new ad format will not only empower small businesses but will also increase the choices for prospective customers. With the available options of shop now, purchase an item or download app- marketers can also take aid of CTA buttons to influence user decisions.
While some of you might still not have ‘noticed’ the presence of sponsored ads on Instagram. Here’s how a sponsored advertisement will appear in your photo feed. Clicking on the 3 dots “…” will hide the ad from your profile.
All in all
With marketers long anticipated wait for instagram advertisements finally coming to an end, one should be surprised to find more ads in their photo feed. While the expansion of advertising options has been received as a welcome move by the whole business fraternity, Instagram is going to break loose if the decision is not carefully implemented. Instagram too has been quick to realize the fear of too much advertising and has promised a good balance of advertisement in order not to disrupt user-experience.
42Works Verdict:
While the decision has been received warmly by all, we just hope users don’t shun the platform because of too many ads. Instagram needs to tread carefully between desires of advertisers and users to ensure that user don’t turn off from them. Whether the ploy succeeds or self-destructs, only time will tell.
