Instagram, the growing darling of the social media world, just announced they’d reached a milestone in monthly active users – 150 million. This latest step up the ladder puts just a couple rungs from Twitter, which counts just over 200 million monthly active users. Also, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Instagram’s Director of Business Operations Emily White hinted that ads were coming on the platform (likely with the next year) – but not being rushed.
So, what do ads on a platform which touts the mission “to capture and share the world’s moments” look like? You can bet they’ll adopt targeting similar to Facebook’s existing targeting (especially since many users share data between their two accounts), but there could be more in store. We may have to wait a while longer to find out, but we’ve put together our wish list for what we’d like to see out of Instagram’s paid offering:
Clickable Links
It might seem a bit small time, but for brands looking to drive traffic, interest, and sales – it’s one of increasing importance. As of now, users can’t add clickable links on Instagram aside from the link in their profile. As brands start creating engaging, interesting content aimed at exciting and activating users, the addition of clickable links to product info and more information will become a necessity.
Hashtag Targeting
Users are already talking about brands on Instagram (whether the brands themselves are on Instagram of not). Just take a look at a popular brand name as a hashtag. Take #jackdaniels for instance: more than 410k photos are tagged with that hashtag. If Jack Daniels had the chance to show their content in premium placements on the Explore tab associated with #jackdaniels, they could increase exposure of their content and engage an already active audience.
Promoted Trends
The one thing missing from Instagram’s Explore function is the idea of trending content. Yes, they highlight users’ content on the main Explore tab, but there’s no real nod to the fact that those images/videos are resonating with the audience. If they made that change, then added the ability for brands to pay to promote trending hashtags or content, they’d pull alongside Twitter’s trending topics and could help brands create cross-platform trend buying strategies.
Keyword Targeting
There are a couple ways keyword targeting could be an interesting addition to Instagram’s paid options. First, if brands were able to bid on keywords similar to how they do on Twitter and then serve their promoted content to users who post images containing those keywords or hashtags. This would aim to deliver relevant, interesting content around events, topics, and products – something that seems to be in line with their mission to share the world’s moments. Second, Instagram could allow brands to target users who like images/videos using certain hashtags. In this instance, say someone likes a photo from a friend that has the tag #jackdaniels in it, then they’d be served an image from @JackDaniels in their feed.
Image Marketplace
One thing we’re hoping for, but definitely know there’s much work that needs to be done with users to make it happen is the addition of a user-generated content marketplace that would allow brands to license and use Instagram user images in digital advertising. This would be an incredible use of the platform in terms of content sourcing and has the added benefit of social capital along with great content.
Bonus: Wider Availability
While porting apps to smaller operating systems isn’t always the easiest (or cost efficient) thing for companies to do, when thinking about how to grow advertising revenue, the opportunity to have your app in the hands of more people becomes increasingly important. Because of that, we’d love to see Instagram on Windows Phone in the near future – especially when you consider some of the great camera capabilities of Windows Phone handsets.
Like we said, we’ll likely be learning bits and pieces about Instagram’s ad offering over the coming weeks and months. No one (maybe not even Instagram) knows for sure what their offerings will look like at rollout, but you can bet one thing: brands will be clamouring for a chance to reach their audiences through the platform… and we’ll be right there with them.
This piece was syndicated on MediaTel.co.uk in its entirety http://mediatel.co.uk/newsline/2013/09/13/instagram-ads-five-things-wed-love-to-see/