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Think Instagram is Your Best Marketing Tool Because of Its Popularity? Think Again

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By Bryan Adams

Here’s how these visual communication platforms differ and why you need to consider what’s best for your brand.

Instagram’s popularity is no secret. With more than 800 million users, 25 million business accounts and two million advertisers, it’s one of the leading social channels and known for its diverse audience. So it comes as no surprise that most marketers assume Instagram is one of the best tools in their marketing arsenal.

It might not be smart, though, to focus all your marketing resources on Instagram. I’ve started using Pinterest a lot more these days–yes, Pinterest–and it’s become a shockingly useful tool for me. I actually prefer it to Instagram now.

Here’s why, and the killer marketing strategies I’ve discovered using it:

Functionality

Instagram is great for uploading personal content and to share your own photos/videos of your brand. You create your page, gain followers and connect; always giving off a more personal experience and Instagram users crave this.

At my agency, which specializes in employer brand, it’s important the content we share demonstrates our business’s authenticity to our audience. It sounds swell and doable. Just be yourself, right? But I remember what it’s like starting out new; having limited employees, the time, resources and having to prioritize tasks.

Instagram does help us do this. But having Instagram to promote your brand, your profile requires a certain level of attention for it to be noticed and reach success. As a new business, you might not have authentic content to post just yet.

With Pinterest, you curate, share and collect quality content, mostly uploaded by others. It’s a great tool for distributing content that doesn’t need to be your own, users just want to be inspired and find ideas.

When my brand was starting out we created a profile based on things we love and built a visual portfolio through pins and boards. This way we were sharing who we were, building expertise, entertaining and connecting with our audience through similar passion.

The platform allows you to segment products and services into tailored groups, which if tagged correctly, can hit multiple target personas. It doesn’t have to be personal to gain engagement and this means there’s no pressure for you as a start-up to get creating content. To establish a following, Pinterest is more practical.

Web Traffic

Social media will only get you so far. You need those leads to get to your site and convert into sales.

Don’t underestimate the power of image search, Pinterest makes it easy for an image to direct the user back to the source as most pins should always include a link. Instagram is famously difficult with links.

I found this useful trying to increase awareness of our blogs and case studies. One simple but effective image could result in major traffic to our website, where users would find both resources and a list of all our services available. This reduced the steps from discovery to conversion, consumers like convenience.

Instagram doesn’t have the option to insert links into comments, posts or stories–unless it’s a paid ad, which isn’t always necessary or financially possible for your business. You can have a link in your text which you can direct users and your followers to, but this assumes a lot about the engagement your content is receiving.

Since the launch of IGTV, we’ve found that we can upload up to an hour of video content–which is a great way of showcasing what we can do. It means Instagram remains good for brand discovery–but you need to have the amenities to get your brand image up to scratch before you can take advantage of it.

Content

The biggest reason I use Pinterest is the shelf life of pins. Pins get discovered a long time after they’re born and continue to drive visits to your sites.

We created one of our most popular boards years ago, and it still gets re-pinned. On other platforms, like Instagram, content is updated as a live feed and posts expire unless users search for your content directly. If you don’t have a big presence on the platform yet, that kind of shelf life unlikely to happen.

Sure, in an ideal world, you’d like to have presences on both platforms. But when you’re first starting out, it’s tough to find the resources and time to simultaneously manage them effectively. Consider which platform can offer you the most value in your current position–and go from there.

Feature Image Credit: Shutterstock

By Bryan Adams

Founder and CEO, Ph.Creative@Bryan_phc

Sourced from Inc.

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Instagram fights back against fake accounts & bad actors with new safety tools

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Accounts with large audiences will soon have ‘About this Account’ information that publicly lists the date the account was created, ads it is running and more.

After last week’s announcement that 652 Pages, accounts and groups had been removed from Facebook and Instagram, Facebook’s less popular (but quickly growing) app is now getting its own set of safety tools.

In the coming weeks, Instagram will be rolling out three new security measures designed to safeguard itself against fake accounts and create more secure login channels to keep existing accounts from being hacked.

“About this Account” information coming soon

Instagram accounts with large audiences will soon have an “About this Account” tab found within their Profile menu that will list the date the account was opened, the country where it is located, any accounts with shared followers, username changes during the last year and any ads the account is currently running. (Marketing Land has asked Instagram to quantify what counts as “a large audience,” but has not yet received a response.)

According to the announcement, account owners will be able to review the “About this Account” information before it is made public.

“In September, people who have accounts that reach large audiences can review the information about their accounts that will soon be publicly available. After that, the ‘About this Account’ tool will be available to the global community,” writes Instagram CTO Mike Krieger.

Account verification form now available within the app

Along with making background information on accounts publicly available, Instagram is giving accounts with large audiences the opportunity to request verification through the app. To be verified, Instagram accounts must comply with the company’s terms of service and community guidelines. Instagram says verification will involve looking at an account’s “authenticity, uniqueness, completeness and notability.”

The verification tool is now available from the “Settings” page within an account’s profile menu on the app. To complete the verification form, users must include the account username, their full name and a copy of their legal or business identification.

Third-party authenticator app selection for added security

Instagram is also adding third-party authenticator apps to its list of safety tools — expanding its two-factor authentication offerings for accounts that want a heightened level of security around the Instagram login process. Users will soon be able to select “Authentication App” from their “Settings” menu, under the “Two-Factor Authentication” listing.

“If you already have an authentication app installed, we will automatically find the app and send a login code to it,” writes Krieger, “If you don’t have one installed yet, we will send you to the App Store or Google Play Store to download the authenticator app of your choice.”

Instagram says support for third-party authenticator apps has started to roll out and will be available globally in the coming weeks.

Krieger says he and Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom have been focused on the platform’s safety since they first founded Instagram eight years ago.

“Today’s updates build upon our existing tools, such as our spam and abusive content filters and the ability to report or block accounts,” writes Krieger, “We know we have more work to do to keep bad actors off Instagram, and we are committed to continuing to build more tools to do just that.

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Amy Gesenhues is Third Door Media’s General Assignment Reporter, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land and Search Engine Land. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs.com, SoftwareCEO.com, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy’s articles.

Sourced from Marketing Land

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Can you sell products on social media?

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By Pierre DeBois

Marketers may have once doubted the possibility of doing so, but there’s no doubt today that retailer interest in social commerce is rising, and has been rising steadily over the years as social became an important part of the mobile nexus, along with the willingness to make purchases via mobile. For example, Business Insider reported last year that the top 500 retailers earned $3.3 billion from social shopping in 2014, a 26 percent increase over 2013.

The result? Consumer interest in products and services is leading to sales, as customers are becoming more comfortable using their phones for online purchases or to complete purchases in-store. How then should marketers and retailers think about marketing for each social media platform? Here are a few observations that can strengthen your strategy development.

Facebook

The largest social media platform has been refining user options for expressing themselves—from emoticons to live video.  Marketers can best leverage Facebook through video by using Facebook Live to speak with business page followers. Many businesses of all scales, such as The Bassline Group in Chicago, use video to connect with customers regularly.

Here are some ideas for Facebook Live content:

  • Product launches and demonstrations: Comments from followers can provide feedback that can become valuable insights when a new product is being revealed.
  • Customer service sessions: Troubleshooting problems with devices or products can incorporate responses from followers, treating it as as face-to-face with a real person.
  • Q&A sessions: Q & A sessions offer opportunities to build customer rapport and trust. Marketers can invite experts to help answer product or service questions from your customers.

Many of these ideas can be conducted through a video platform. Using Facebook Live from a mobile device requires the Pages Manager App.

Facebook is also a dominant advertising platform among social media platforms.  Ads enhance strategy in conveying messages to customers, and Facebook ads have been effective in reach, especially in mobile.  Marketers should look to use Facebook ads as a means to connect to customers on the go.

Marketers can also look forward to more Facebook refinements, and for good reason. Marketing Land reported that Facebook will reach maximum News Feed ad load during 2017. This means Facebook must experiment with new ways to deliver ads and other marketing features to continue its revenue growth.

Twitter

Twitter has always been a means for connecting to people outside of a customer base. Past social media strategies have suggested that Facebook pages tend to attract customers familiar with your brand, while Twitter profiles tend to attract people who are seeking your products and services, consequently discovering your business.

Twitter has striven to provide features that deepen engagement.   Industry analysts have been critical of recent trends that suggest waning user interest in Twitter.   Brands interested in immersive advertising experiences have demanded more segmentation features.  In response Twitter has introduced ad groups, a campaign feature that customizes according to segment. It has revised its analytics dashboard to improve campaign measurement.

Marketers should also consider Twitter as an opportunity to provide customer service.  According to Twitter,  an Applied Marketing Science study confirmed that customer service on Twitter influences sales. Providing customer service through social channels like Twitter can be a fast way to connect to customers and let them know that their needs are indeed heard.  But marketers must verify that customers are comfortable using Twitter before initiating or expanding customer service resources.

Pinterest

Pinterest has become a search engine, according to Marketing Land. Users pin Pinterest images after discovering products, services, and brands they like the most. This planning reflects the potential of future purchases.

Marketers can strategize on this behavior by creating a preview board in Pinterest—teaser images and ideas that let followers know about what’s to come.  YouTube videos can also be embedded in a pin—at the top of this article is one I made for a presentation as an example.  Cultivating a preview board keeps users engaged and builds a following that eventually leads to sales.

Instagram

Retailers and brands are discovering how inspirational posts on Instagram can raise branding impact. New tools, such as Instagram Analytics, are starting to help marketers manage that impact. These tools are meant to leverage the best aspect of Instagram—presenting unique images and video that show how a product or service is used among consumers, or reflect the quality of a product.

The content can range from lifestyle associations, such as hiking with Timberland boots, or showing how boots are manufactured to exacting standards. Overall, images should augment the imaginative connection customers have with brands.

Supplementing Social Media Strategy With Analytic Tools Is Now A Must

No matter what combination of social media is used, marketers should also examine advanced dashboards options that blend social media data into a central graph.  Options run the gamut from Supermetrics—a service that lets you pull data from an Excel sheet into Google Data Studio and then into a dashboard.  R programming models can also be used to predict trends. These tools can determine which platforms are best in referring traffic to retailers’ websites and apps.

Can you sell products in social media?  Customer response appears to make that answer an emphatic “Yes!”  But it is up to marketers to make sure they listen to how that yes is expressed, and use that knowledge to inform their social strategy.

By Pierre DeBois

Sourced from DMN Data. Strategy. Technology.

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5 Golden Marketing Tips for Ruling Instagram

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While Facebook’s move to purchase Instagram for $1 billion back in 2012 was initially viewed with some skepticism, it’s since proven to be a stroke of genius, with the visual-focused platform advancing to a billion active users, and providing Facebook with a unique, mobile-native way to broaden its reach.

But the exponential growth of Instagram has lead to a new problem – now that everyone is jumping on board the Instagram train, including brands looking to ride the new wave, it’s become increasingly more difficult to stand out in user feeds.

If you’re having trouble getting traction with your Instagram presence, here are some key tips that will help set you on the right track.

1. Establish Your Content Strategy

Converting Instagram audiences into customers is, first and foremost, dependent on the content you choose to share. The phrase “content is king” is one of the few terms that can never be overused for marketing or PR – effective content helps to build trust, is entertaining, and will inspire your audience to take action. As such, a clear plan of action is required in order to present your product to prospective buyers.

Every effective Instagram strategy must have an editorial calendar in place, one that ‘s both timed properly and aligned with the broader brand mission. Posts should be scheduled and targeted appropriately, of course, but they should adhere to the overall concept you’ve developed for your Insta presence.

To quote directly from Instagram for Business:

“The key to creative success across Instagram – or any other marketing channel – is relevant creative that’s well branded, concept-driven and well crafted. Follow these tried and true principles when creating your next direct response campaign and see how the ads perform.”

Consider your purpose, your posts in isolation, and the broader brand presence you’re looking to build, then strategize accordingly.

2. Build a Beautiful Story

It’s no revelation that Instagram is a visual platform where user preference leans toward high quality, aesthetically beautiful posts. Given this, brands seeking to engage instagrammers should focus on composing beautiful, artful, and thoughtfully arranged images and videos which will engage their target demographic.

Fortunately for those marketers not equipped with the best professional images, Instagram does offer a nice array of filters and other tools for improving on your content, and there are various complimentary apps you can use to enhance your presentation.

A sample of complimentary Instagram apps you can utilize

While Instagram has added new tools like Stories and advancing video functions into the mix, your visuals still play a key role in getting users to stop and pay attention.

It’s worth taking the time to compose and design compelling visual content.

3. Create Discussions

Now that you’ve created an aesthetically beautiful and emotionally-aligned presence that you’re sure will win customers, you need to consider how you can take that initial interest a step further, and move your Instagram audience towards becoming customers.

Social conversions increasingly come out of a sense of participation and connectedness, or the belief that there’s a human being on the other end of the bandwidth. Conversations created through Q&A, polls, and through comments drive Instagram users further inside your marketing matrix.

Ironically, relatively few marketing firms make good use of discussion in their Instagram campaigning, but really being ‘social’ is what ‘social media’ platforms are all about, and it’s important to make the most of your opportunities by extending the conversation, where possible.

Instagram, and indeed all social networks, offer ways to facilitate relationships. This is useful whether you’re sharing beautiful stories, providing customer service, or even connecting with other industry influencers. And given the power of such opportunity, it needs to be a key element in your strategy.

4. Utilize Influencers

I almost decided against listing this aspect of Instagram marketing, because businesses can be victimized by the many unscrupulous or ineffectual influencers out there.

We’ve had varying experience with bloggers, and even celebrities – but that said, influencer marketing on Instagram can be a game-changer. My advice here is to ensure you do your homework before choosing an influencer to partner with.

Despite the concerns, there are many influential Instagrammers who’ll give more than your money’s worth. Once you’re satisfied and your budget/plan is established, you can expect the following:

  • The right influencer can gain your brand/product instant approval from his/her following
  • Research shows businesses can gain more than 10x ROI through influencers
  • As an added bonus, business Instagram accounts gain followers organically from influencers
  • Influencers give you better access to Millennial and Gen Z consumers

5. Make Buying Easy

Instagram is rolling out more and more tools to help businesses generate direct sales. Recent research shows that almost two-thirds of Instagram users have made at least one purchase after having seen an item or service on Instagram first.

I’ve already mentioned using stories, but including links within those conversational elements can make the conversion process that much easier. Action buttons are another tool that simplifies the buying process, and now Instagram is allowing some businesses to create a visual storefront as well, along with Shopping Tags in posts.

Additionally, marketers are also turning to third-party platforms like PromoRepublic, Magisto, or MikMak Attach, which enable you to add a shoppable video layer which can be added to an Instagram Story or Snap Ad. Finally, Story Highlights let businesses present the video clips you want viewed first to appear exactly above your Instagram feed.

There’s a range of ways you can use Instagram, and it’s worth investigating all the options available to help ensure your business presence stands out. But note, your competitors are likely doing the same. By using a combination of techniques, you can stay ahead of the game, and come up with unique, visual identifiers that expand your presence and performance.

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Follow Phil Butler on Twitter

Sourced from Social Media Today

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How Instagram Is Transforming Into A Fully Fledged Sales Channel For Ecommerce

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By Valerie Lavskaya

The popularity of Instagram is rapidly growing day by day. According to the Statista 2018 report, this is the 6th most popular social media network in the world with the leading interaction rates. Recently, Instagram reported that they have more than 500+ million worldwide profiles which are active every day, and more than 80% of all users follow at least one business page.

Lately, we notice the tendency of using YouTube instead of Google. It has become clear that Instagram marketers have also decided to extend their network’s functionality and encourage people to use Instagram instead of Google. In particular, by the new e-commerce features which were developed in cooperation with BigCommerce and Shopify. These novelties allow millions of any-scale worldwide retailers to offer their products via Instagram accounts, gather feedback, retain their customers, and draw them directly to their websites for purchasing.

In this article, I will try to show some Instagram e-commerce solutions which could help e-store owners boost traffic to their website and improve their customer loyalty, as well as demonstrate how creativity is vital in the era of visualization, and how this can bring you revenue.

Product Tagging

The latest and the most effective e-commerce profile feature is a shoppable photo tag. Instagram’s shopping service was successfully launched in the United States in October 2017. This March, finally, the feature extended and became available in 44 other countries.

The main Instagram shopping feature lies in the ability of e-commerce businesses to tag item prices and include special offers to the photos they publish on their business profiles, as well as connecting these products with an item page on their website. Retailers can also add a description to every appropriate tagged product which can differ from the main text content in the post; this will appear after a user has tapped on the price.

store.png

A seller can tag up to 5 prices to one photo, and up to 20 prices on a carousel post. In a feed, such posts are pointed with a tiny basket icon. Also, the “Shop” section appears on the home Instagram page automatically.  

To implement this feature into the Instagram account, a retailer has to have a full catalog with the same range of goods on their Facebook page. All products must comply with the Facebook Commerce Product Merchant Agreement and Commerce Policy. Retailers must offer Instagram users only physical products, apart from tobacco products or paraphernalia, alcohol, weapons, ammunition, and explosives. Sellers cannot sell animals, any healthcare products, notably including “before and after” images, downloadable digital products, virtual currency, and, certainly, products and services with overly sexualized positioning.

What about services? Agencies are able to offer services, whether it is cleaning or a promotional service, as well as event tickets, but only with Facebook written permission. Each e-commerce owner who plans to sell their goods via shoppable Instagram posts should also obtain approvement from Facebook moderators.

Managing an Instagram shop is available through Facebook Business, Shopify or BigEcommerce accounts.

Instagram Saved Stories

Instagram has forbidden posting links to a website anywhere apart from the bio section. However, since Instagram accounts which have more than 10,000 subscribers received the opportunity to add direct links to their stories, Instagram became a fruitful sales channel for many retailers. Thanks to the usability, a user can be taken to a website using one swipe.

Along with that, Instagram allowed users to save their stories into different folders. A majority of e-commerce accounts find creative approaches for the new section. One of them duplicated the main website categories, and others – split stories with links “see more” to new folders as “summer must-have,” “best-sellers” or “customers” choice.”

Asos instagam.gif

We studied 30 Instagram accounts of the most-visited UK e-commerce stores and found that 14 of these use categorized saved stories with direct links to their websites as an extra and convenient way for users to find a desirable product. The option is catching on.

saved stories

Tags Which Work as Filters

This solution is useful for sales or special prices. When you offer discounts for a specific group of products, you can create a separate tag below each post which contains any of these offers. This way, a customer will be able to see all products at a discounted price by clicking this hashtag. And a retailer, thanks to the “editability,” can easily remove irrelevant hashtags at any time.

For instance, a store “Berry” offers discounts for all green dresses for St. Patrick’s Day. Announcing this on Instagram, they can create a unique tag #GreenBerrySale in this post and add this to all posts with green dresses.

New e-Commerce Features – Coming Soon to Instagram

Instagram is planning to evolve business profiles, and they have been testing new features which will be launched in the very near future.

Instagram Booking And Native Payment System

According to a Techcrunch report, Instagram stakes on booking. Developers stealthily added a native payments feature into the app for some users. Today, this is available for electives from the US only, but it is conceivable that Instagram users will soon be able to book a cinema ticket, apartments or a restaurant directly via an app in the future — no redirecting to websites required.

instagram-book-service.gif

In the future, Instagram is planning to expand their payment system opportunities to allow users to purchase items at a retailer’s online site inside Instagram, by opening a separate pop-out page and following standard online checkout processes.

It is interesting to note that if Instagram implements their native payment system, for the purposes of e-commerce, they will become a hybrid model of a marketplace. And this can radically change the primary vision of this social media network.

Shoppable Video Ads On Instagram

In February 2018, Instagram started testing “collection” campaigns on Instagram. Brands and companies will be able to post their media campaigns with an attached catalog of products used in the video ad. This option consequently reduces the customers time to purchase.

Instagram collection campaign.gif

Is Instagram a fruitful sales channel for large e-commerce today?

According to research discussed by SmartInsights this year, more than 1 million brands are sharing and promoting their products as well as stories on the social network. Moreover, over 75% of Instagram users take action, such as visiting a website, after looking at an Instagram advertising post.

By expanding shopping features to new countries, Instagram presented high results for businesses that started using price tags in Autumn 2017. For instance, they said that accessories brand Native Union announced that thanks to the new feature, their Instagram traffic has increased by 2.666 percent and their revenue – by 100% MoM.

Examining European Businesses

We decided to check if shopping on Instagram has become effective for European business profiles since its launch in March 2018. We studied Instagram profiles of the 30 most visited UK online stores within the following niches: clothing, сonsumer electronics, furniture, home and garden, children, and jewelry.

We found out that 46.7% of these already use Instagram shopping and 53.3% do not. In the image below we can see that all retailers which sell clothing implemented this novelty into their profiles. As well as more than half of home, garden goods and furniture retailers; they have realized that their target audience is actively following them on Instagram and it is a good place to reach their targeted audience.

instagram-usage.jpg

We also checked how their traffic from Instagram has changed since the shopping feature launch. To find this out, we compared the traffic data of three popular e-commerce websites in February and May.

As we can see below, the traffic has increased in most cases, but generally, this share is insignificant. The majority of traffic from social networks comes from Facebook, followed by YouTube and Reddit. Is this due to marketing strategies or lack of options for users? More examination is needed, but we do know Instagram’s upcoming opportunities for e-commerce should be helpful to businesses with or without added website traffic.

instagram-shop-diagram.jpg

Final Thoughts

Instagram is becoming more e-commerce-friendly, and this is easy-to-see from their new “One Tap Shop” feature, as well as from “Now More” function in stories or promotion posts. And as discussed above, they are also working on the native booking and payment system.

The Instagram interface allows e-commerce owners to adapt their accounts into user-friendly “websites”. In many instances, their profiles look better than the company websites. New solutions are molding Instagram into a level playing field for e-commerce players. A business’s popularity, engagement, and traffic to the website have become directly dependant on their creativity and marketing strategies.

Instagram’s popularity is growing, and thanks to the creativity of marketers and social media specialists today, Instagram can bring any-scale e-commerce business real revenue.

By Valerie Lavskaya

I’m a content specialist at Promodo Digital Agency. I’m always seeking for fresh data and actual facts to bring relevant ideas to the audience. I believe that useful content can enrich the experience of marketers and empower businesses to make the right decisions fast and accurately.

Sourced from SEMRUSH

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Instagram Leads as a Global Platform for Influencer Marketing

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By Jasmine Enberg

But not in every country, and China has its own players

Influencer marketing is a powerful tactic that targets consumers where they already spend much of their time: social media. Globally speaking, Instagram is the primary platform for many influencer-brand campaigns, but it’s hardly the only one.

Take China, for example. Most of the major international social networks, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube, are banned by the government. That means that the country’s influencers hold court on local services, of which Weibo and WeChat are the most popular.

And in the DACH region—which includes Austria, Germany and Switzerland—Instagram and YouTube are neck and neck, at least in terms of influencer marketing spending. According to Goldmedia data, sponsored content on the two platforms accounted for 34% and 31% of total influencer revenues in 2017, respectively.

Spending figures don’t always tell the whole story. While Goldmedia took into account both monetary and nonmonetary compensation, such as product gifting, influencers may charge a premium for a post on a certain platform, which could inflate its share of spending.

But those findings make sense when looking at where consumers in the region follow influencers. According to a March 2018 survey by M Science for Wavemaker, social media users in Germany were just as likely to follow an influencer on YouTube as they were Instagram, each cited by 73% of respondents. Roughly half said they followed influencers on Facebook.

That said, the importance of Instagram for influencer campaigns is rising in nearly every market worldwide.

In a February 2018 survey by influencer marketing agency Activate, 88.9% of worldwide influencers said they were using Instagram for influencer marketing campaigns more than they did one year ago. Excluding posts on their feeds, Instagram Stories was the most popular tactic used for sponsored campaigns.

Instagram’s rising popularity for influencer campaigns goes hand in hand with the platform’s strong user growth, as marketers tend to go where their customers are.

India is one example of that. According to our latest forecast, the number of Instagram users in the country grew by an explosive 123% in 2017—the fastest growth rate worldwide. So it’s no surprise that 78% of influencers in India cited Instagram as the platform that would rise in importance for influencer marketing this year, according to a December 2017 survey from influencer marketing agency Buzzoka.

Overall, we expect the number of worldwide Instagram users to rise by 18.4% to 714.4 million in 2018. Sweden will have the highest Instagram user penetration rate in the world, at 68.9% of social network users, followed by Indonesia (62.8%) and Norway (57.7%).

By Jasmine Enberg

Sourced from eMarketer

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Instagram unveils a new video service, challenging YouTube

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Sourced from FLIPBOARD

Facebook Inc.’s Instagram service is loosening its restraints on video in an attempt to pull younger viewers away from YouTube when they’re looking for something to watch on their smartphones.

The expansion announced Wednesday, dubbed IGTV, will increase Instagram’s video time limit from one minute, making it 10 minutes for most users. Accounts with large audiences will be able to go as long as an hour.

Video will be available through Instagram or a new app called IGTV. The video eventually would give Facebook more opportunities to sell advertising.

This is the latest instance in which Instagram has ripped a page from a rival’s playbook in an effort to preserve its status as a cool place for young people to share and view content. In this case, Instagram is mimicking Google’s YouTube. Before, Facebook and Instagram have copied Snapchat — another magnet for teens and young adults.

Instagram, now nearly 8 years old, is moving further from its roots as a photo-sharing service as it dives headlong into longer-form video.

The initiative comes as parent company Facebook struggles to attract teens while also dealing with a scandal that exposed its leaky controls for protecting users’ personal information.

Instagram Chief Executive Kevin Systrom said he hopes IGTV will emerge as a hub of creativity for relative unknowns who turn into internet sensations with fervent followings among teens and young adults.

That is what’s already happening on YouTube, which has become the world’s most popular video outlet since Google bought it for $1.76 billion nearly 12 years ago. YouTube now boasts 1.8 billion users.

Instagram, which Facebook bought for $1 billion six years ago, now has 1 billion users, up from 800 million nine months ago.

More importantly, 72% of U.S. children ages 13 to 17 use Instagram, second to YouTube at 85%, according to the Pew Research Center. Only 51% of kids in that group now use Facebook, down from 71% from a similar Pew survey in 2014-15.

That trend appears to be one of the reasons that Facebook is “hedging its bets” by opening Instagram to the longer-form videos typically found on YouTube, said analyst Paul Verna of the research firm eMarketer.

In addition to giving Instagram another potential drawing card, longer clips are more conducive for video ads lasting from 30 seconds to one minute. Instagram doesn’t currently allow video ads, but Systrom said it eventually will. When the ads come, Instagram intends to share revenue with the videos’ creators — just as YouTube already does.

“We want to make sure they make a living because that is the only way it works in the long run,” Systrom said.

The ads also would help Facebook sustain its revenue growth. Total spending on online video ads in the United States is expected to rise from nearly $18 billion this year to $27 billion in 2021, according to EMarketer.

Lele Pons, a YouTube sensation who also has amassed 25 million followers on Instagram, plans to launch a cooking show on IGTV in hopes of increasing her audience and eventually generating more revenue. “It’s like Coca-Cola and Pepsi,” she said. “You will never know what you like better unless you try both.”

IGTV’s programming format will consist exclusively of vertical video designed to fill the entire screen of a smartphone — the devices are emerging as the main way younger people watch video. By contrast, most YouTube videos fill only part of the screen unless the phone is tilted horizontally.

Snapchat began featuring vertical video before Instagram, making Instagram’s move another example of its penchant for copying rivals.

But Systrom sees it differently. “This is acknowledging vertical video is the future and we want the future to come more quickly, so we built IGTV.”

Sourced from FLIPBOARD

Article originally appeared in Los Angeles Times

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Longer videos are coming to Instagram

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By Kurt Wagner

Plus Messenger’s autoplay video ads, Pinterest’s shopping ambitions and more news from Cannes Lions.

Greetings from Cannes Lions, the annual advertising boondoggle in the South of France where the ad industry gathers to wheel and deal, take advantage of lavish expense reports, and where drinking rosé is acceptable at any time of the day.

Many of the digital media industry’s largest advertising platforms — Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, to name a few — spend the week in Cannes in luxurious beachside cabanas, trying to lock down advertising deals for the back half of the year. But a lot of the hubbub is tailored around social events, like beach parties and fancy dinners at nearby hotels. As one ad tech executive put it to me Monday night, “there’s a fine line between networking and not working.” It’s sometimes tough to tell who’s doing what.

But real business does get done in Cannes [Ed. note: Kurt, you’re protesting too much]. Many companies see it as a mid-year check-in where they can talk to partners about plans for the second half of the year. (Vegas’ CES, held in January each year, is the early-year equivalent to Cannes Lions.)

Here’s what I’m hearing:

Instagram is preparing to launch longform video

Whoops! Scratch thatI This week’s most intriguing product announcement isn’t actually happening in Cannes — it’s happening at Instagram’s new San Francisco office, though media companies here are certainly taking notice and Instagram plans to stream it live to reporters here on the ground. (Another big ad story that people are talking about at Cannes, even though it’s not happening at Cannes: AT&T’s plan to acquire ad tech company AppNexus for $1.6 billion.)

The Facebook-owned app has a press event scheduled for 9 am PT Wednesday morning, and multiple sources say the company is planning to unveil a longform video feature, which would let people share videos up to an hour in length. The last time Instagram did a big press event like this was in 2013 when it unveiled Direct, its private messaging service. This doesn’t happen often.

The longer videos will reside in their own section of the app, these sources say, but it’s unclear if Instagram is going after the kind of original programming that Snapchat offers inside its Discover section. Instead, it seems Instagram is simply hoping that brands and advertisers will see the new section as an alternative to YouTube (and even Facebook) for posting longform shows and videos. Eventually, we imagine Instagram will try and monetize these longer videos with mid-roll or pre-roll ads, similar to what the company is doing now inside Facebook Watch.

We’ll know soon what the product looks like, but one possible benefit of Instagram’s new feature might be its openness. Snapchat Discover has always been exclusive, only available to certain media partners or big-time celebrities. It sounds as though Instagram’s product will be available to everyone, giving more people an opportunity to participate. Then again, there are obvious cons to letting more people participate. Ask YouTube.

The bigger question, though, is whether or not people actually want to watch longer video inside Instagram. One media executive I spoke with in Cannes on Tuesday likened it to McDonald’s selling a salad. That might work for some people, but, “It’s still not a burger.”

Messenger is running autoplay video ads

Facebook’s Messenger service started rolling out autoplay video ads this week, meaning you might soon see a video in your inbox alongside messages from friends and family. The messaging inbox is typically a personal space, and it’s unclear how the addition of video ads will go over with users.

“Top priority for us is user experience,” Stefanos Loukakos, who runs Messenger’s ad business, told me from a beachside cabana. “So we don’t know yet [if these will work]. However, signs until now, when we tested basic ads, didn’t show any changes with how people used the platform or how many messages they send.”

“Video might be a bit different, but we don’t believe so.”

Pinterest wants people shopping more on its service, and is hiring like crazy

Pinterest is in Cannes for the fourth straight year, and rented a nice pier on the beach that the company is using for meetings. A few takeaways from our sit-down interview with Jon Kaplan, the company’s global head of sales:

  • Pinterest wants more people shopping on Pinterest. To do that, Kaplan says the company needs more “shoppable pins,” or photos and videos that identify the products you see in them, and give you a chance to click and buy that product right there. Right now, a “single-digit” percentage of pins on the service are shoppable, Kaplan says. He wouldn’t share a hard goal, but says there are some categories Pinterest plans to focus on. “Home and fashion will be the two big focus areas for us to start,” he said. “We have aspirations for that to be completely shoppable in those categories.”
  • Pinterest is boosting its sales team. Kaplan said the company plans to grow the sales team, which was at “several hundreds” at the beginning of the year, by more than 50 percent.
  • Pinterest is finally starting to sell ads in non-English-speaking countries for the first time. The company started testing ads in France on Monday, and Kaplan says Germany is next on the list. All businesses would love to add more revenue, but Pinterest in particular. Last year, the company missed internal revenue targets, but many believe Pinterest is on an IPO track, anyway. More revenue streams should help with the process.

Snapchat and Instagram have dueling story exhibits

Both Snapchat and Instagram are showing off art installations at Cannes, and both companies are making user Stories a big part of the exhibit.

Snapchat’s exhibit is called Sound Stories, and the company worked with an artist named Christian Marclay who watched thousands of public user stories to find audio clips he then turned into art. In one section of the exhibit, Cannes attendees could play a piano where the keys correspond to sounds pulled from actual user Stories.

Instagram’s exhibit, which was created by artist Es Devlin, was less interactive, but flashier. Attendees could watch a three-minute video that showed the importance of storytelling over time, with some clips from users’ stories littered in. The show ends with the line: “Can one story change history? Does any story really vanish once it’s been told?”

The exhibits were interesting, but even more interesting was that Stories was the format of choice for companies. It’s clear that Stories are not just growing in popularity among users, but they’re growing in importance for these business, too.

Is Cannes Lions shrinking?

Cannes feels less crowded than years past, and attendees are noticing. The obvious explanation is that some major ad agencies, like Publicis, sat out of this year’s conference. We’ve asked Cannes representatives for attendance figures and will update if we hear back, but those figures may not tell the whole story. Many people come to the conference but don’t actually register — a badge isn’t needed to hold meetings or get into nearby hotels where much of the action takes place.

Feature Image Credit: Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom and Facebook CEO Mark ZuckerbergFacebook / Mark Zuckerberg

By Kurt Wagner

Sourced from recode

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Facebook’s Problems Cause Some Instagram Problems

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By Rich Duprey

A heavy-handed approach to the latest privacy breach may damage its fast-growing social media platform.

As Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) reels from its latest privacy scandal, and global government regulators investigate the possibility that it violated privacy laws by allowing personal user data to be collected by third parties, the social media platform is seeking to wall off its sibling apps, Instagram and WhatsApp, from a similar backlash.

A blanket approach

Tech journals reported that Instagram last week abruptly cut off developer access to the site’s API while limiting how often others can use its API to collect data on users. APIs, or application programming interfaces, are programming instructions for accessing a software application by other software; they’re not user interfaces. Sites like Facebook and Instagram open them to developers who use the API to build third-party apps that are able to function with the site.

Image source: Getty Images.

What Facebook did with Instagram was apparently limit the number of times a developer can use the API to ping the site for updated information, reportedly dropping the number of calls per user per hour from 5,000 down to just 200.

Because there was no warning that the limits were being imposed, developers were caught flat-footed from angry users who reported the apps were no longer working properly with the site. Industry site Recode notes that some industries such as customer service or brand marketing need near-constant access to Instagram data if they want to keep up with customer complaints or posts, but the limits are preventing them from doing so.

It seems Facebook took a ham-fisted approach to a problem it had and layered it on top of the rest of the organization to prevent its recurrence, without thinking through the intricacies of what it was doing.

A history of privacy woes

Instagram is Facebook’s billion-dollar baby. Purchased in 2012 for $1 billion, Instagram has quickly become a cash cow for Facebook. It had some 30 million users when it was bought, and no revenue, but it has since grown into one of the premiere social media platforms. Every day, 500 million people log into the site, some 800 million people log in at least once a month, and Instagram is expected to generate $10 billion in revenue by 2019.

User privacy has seemingly long been an afterthought for Facebook, which has weathered numerous criticisms over the years with the way it’s played fast and loose with user privacy. Because it has grudgingly modified its settings at different times as concerns flared up, it may not have realized how serious the current situation was.

Yet in something of an apology tour to media outlets, CEO Mark Zuckerberg now admits that most users have probably had their personal information “scraped” by third parties, and Facebook has since estimated that as many as 87 million people had their information exposed to Cambridge Analytica, the political analysis firm. That is a much greater number than the 50 million that was estimated before.

The risk here is that the company faces a backlash not only from regulators and politicians, but now from users who will be leery about sharing information on social media, whether it be Facebook or Instagram, and also developers who may become leery about developing apps for the platforms.

Trust is hard to regain

Almost all of Facebook’s revenue is derived from third-party advertising on Facebook and Instagram. For the past three years, advertising accounted for 98%, 97%, and 95%, respectively, of its revenue. If users aren’t using the platforms to engage with friends, families, and companies, advertisers may very well shut down their advertising streams.

Warren Buffett once noted, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” Having held such a cavalier attitude for so long, Facebook may have damaged its reputation and broken the bonds of trust between it and its users. Yet in trying to rectify the situation all at once, Facebook may also be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

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Feature Image Credit: Getty Images.

By Rich Duprey (TMFCop)

Rich has been a Fool since 1998 and writing for the site since 2004. After 20 years of patrolling the mean streets of suburbia, he hung up his badge and gun to take up a pen full time.

Having made the streets safe for Truth, Justice and Krispy Kreme donuts, he now patrols the markets looking for companies he can lock up as long-term holdings in a portfolio. So follow me on Facebook and Twitter for the most important industry news in retail and consumer products and other great stories.

Sourced from The Motley Fool

 

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