What is SEO?
6th July 2023
Read More
The Formula: Charting Instagram’s meteoric rise
21st July 2017
Since its creation, Instagram has grown at an extremely dramatic pace. It has emerged as a strong competitor to other social media giants, allowing for influencers, publishers and businesses to share their content and promote their products and services. Here we analyse the rise of Instagram for advertising and the new tools it’s introducing.
When Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 for 1 billion dollars, the app only had 30 million users. Now, it has 400 million users and the numbers keep growing. As a result, the platform has become a key tool for brands to gain visibility and create engagement. Thanks to Instagram’s needs feed, your brand will still show up to users who aren’t among your followers. Ads fall naturally into user’s feeds, yet publishers still demand more transparency to their content and want more from their advertising.
That’s why Instagram recently introduced a new feature, known as the ‘paid partnership’ tag. This tool is rolling out to a select number of influencers and publishers, which ensures greater clarity for advertisement. Here’s how it works: If an influencer is posting sponsored content, they can opt to signpost the content as paid for, which will show up above images, in the Instagram feed. So, users will easily be able to distinguish between regular content and a sponsored post.
Those who use the new tag will be able to track the metrics and performance of the sponsored posts. This is welcome news for marketers, because measurement is one of the biggest challenges they face. Now, they’ll be able plug insights and use the information in order to grow and improve. Although Instagram is launching this tool with a select group of influencers, the feature will be available to a broader group in the coming months.
Another feature that Instagram introduced, is the clickable story links feature. At, first this was only available to verified accounts, but since May 2017, it has been expanded to more marketers on the platform. This is a great way for brands to drive traffic to their content. When used effectively, this clickable feature will be a welcome addition to any marketing strategy.
Instagram will continue to develop its community and video will play an important role in the future. The company is working to expand its video features and create a platform where everything happening the world can be accessed in real time.
