Instagram and Advertising

Brands and the social media, with the introduction to new technology and ways to promote, the brands are taking advantages from all the things that can help them promote or spread among their customers. Instagram for example is being more used everyday, for advertising, doing promotions are just even to be present on the daily routine of their customers.

Instagram was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in 2010 it is a social media based on the sharing of multimedia, photos or videos between it’s users and allows the users to use filters. For some time the photos could only be squared (16:9 proportion), as the old polaroid cameras used to be, since a recently upgrade this changed, making possible to share pictures with different dimensions. Also the videos could only have a maximum of fifteen seconds duration. Within less than two years after the application release, there were more than 100 million active users. The application allows the user to share the picture or video with more social medias: Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Tumblr and Swarm.

The filters for the pictures and videos are different, being possible to use 24 different filters for pictures and 13 filters specifically for the videos. The mark of 16 billion pictures were uploaded to Instagram in the year of 2014, 70% of Instagram users check the application at least once a day. The United States Of America holds 40% of the users. Nike is the most followed brand on the platform and has more than 42 million followers while Victoria’s Secret is the most followed retailer.

The most popular hashtags used are #cute #beautiful #me #tbt #love. The application allows the users to browse with profiles, hasgtags and locations. The application uses a geopositioning system that allows its users to set a picture to a specifically location, and even browser new pictures by the location. Also the social media has a smart system that puts together the look alike pictures from what the profile usually likes among with what the followed profiles also liked. This system is a smart way to only show interesting content to their users.

Analyzing the application as a marketing manager, the people can enjoy the best benefits of the social media. Researches point out which is the most effective time and day to upload a post to the platform, being Sunday and Saturday respectively the most effective days, although the most frequent uploads are made on Thursdays. Also the researches point that the best hour of the day to upload is from 1pm to 4 pm, being from 2pm and 3pm the most effective time, so if a brand has a great social media promoter, they will know what is the best time to do their posts.

Majorly the social media is focused on the mobile usage, although possible to use on the computer, it’s functions are restricted to only browsing, liking and following. Only being able to post something with a smartphone.

Although a lot of brands use the social media, there might be some doubts about it, is the application well-suited for all the kinds of brands? or even, is your target on Instagram?

The brands can do a research to find out if their customers are active user of the application, that way they will know what is the audience reached and if the investment on the Instagram social media is worth doing or not. Also some brands might not be suitable to be on the social media, for example some brands known to be exclusive, luxury; their concern is to remain apart from some public, so they might have an account but not for promoting or advertising, but just to remain known and just to be effective for a little portion of the audience.

Instagram also features sponsored ads, this allows the social media to focus effectually in which targets they want. With the smart A.I., Instagram tracks the personality of its user and can aim an specifically ad from a brand that sponsored, to this specific target among the Instagram users. Instagram has more than 400 millions monthly active users, more than 75 millions of everyday users, about 20% of internet users are also using Instagram. Famous Instagram users are also payed by brands to post in the social media, sometimes using product placement in their pictures, or just to build a identity for the brand.

On Instagram the brands use the a lot of a promotion tactic that consists on following the brand profile and using the hashtags (tags), 83% of the posts contains hashtags, this way promoting between the customers and being an active brand among them, being active meaning that the brand is always fresh on the mind of their clients, being able to develop the top-of-mind with the already made clients and the people on their clients environment. Instagram also work for lightning promotion, where the brand announces that the firsts people to use a hashtag, already are participating on a special promotion. The best strategies for a brand is te usage of hashtags, they can be categorized in three different groups, the mostly used and popular hashtags, best chance of being researched through the platform, the use of less popular hashtags, this way driving fewer users to your profile but also more targeted ones, and also the usage of really popular hashtags, used to attract new followers.

Use the Instagram ads for your advantage, also using complementary applications that allows the profile to track whos following or unfollowed the profile, also check which are pictures that caught the most attention, so the media manager can control the quality of the uploads. Those tools make it possible for the social media manager to take care and analyse the most effective posts, check what time its target is more active, so they normally post during the peaks of viewers.

Accessed from http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/important-instagram-stats/

  https://econsultancy.com/blog/66689-how-brands-are-using-instagram-ads/