In the past, businesses on Instagram may have a experienced a little FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out, for you non-millenials) as other social media platforms opened themselves up for promoted posts and advertising services. But no longer! Instagram announced Tuesday that they would be opening up business profiles and advertising tools to companies that relied on the photo-sharing app to get their brand message out to customers.
Although big brands have been advertising on Instagram for a while, this change means that smaller businesses will have a better experience trying to reach potential fans and customers.
The update for businesses will include a contact button on profiles so that customers can easily reach out via phone, text, or email with just a tap, as well as providing directions to businesses with brick and mortar stores. Hopefully the contact button will bring a little more success than the direct messaging feature that has long been available.
The update will equip business accounts on Instagram with a much more accessible set of tools to turn their Instagram posts into ads. In addition to sponsoring posts, businesses will be able to select a target audience and call-to-action for their posts.
Detailed analytics and reporting will also launch, adding impressions to allow social media managers to get a better idea of who is viewing posts. Unlike the current app, analytics breaks down followers by gender, age range, location and “the average time your followers are on Instagram on a typical day,” according to Later.com. This will allow marketers to be smarter and more targeted with how, when, and what they post.
It is no surprise that Instagram is finally following in the footsteps of parent-company Facebook’s robust advertising services, although one might wonder why it’s taken them this long. In any case, visually stimulating industries like apparel, automotive, restaurants, and online stores should have a much heartier marketing experience with the platform’s updates as they roll out over the next few months.
Sources: Instagram Business Blog, Mashable, Fortune.com, TechCrunch.com
