How is Instagram winning over Brands?
It seems the video advertising tactic for brands is a continuing expansion of a new revolutionised form of advertising. eMarketer predicts a spend of $9.9 billion for brands on video ads in the U.S alone this year. SO, how is Instagram winning over brands? Historically it was nothing more than a photo-centric app. However, today it has a montly audience of more than 400 million people that can be targetted with ads.
Why are marketers buying Instagram video ads?
Ultimately, they are inexpensive to run and Instagram is making them even less expensive to produce. Therefore, this means that they are cost-efficient and seem to have a great return on investment. Marketing Land reports that watch time went up by more than 40 percent between August 2015 and February 2016. Convenience is also a key aspect, for brands it has become a far less complex process. Instead of being limited to 15 second square vidoes they can now run for 60 seconds and can be formatted horizontally. Ads can be taken straight from Facebook or Snapchat and placed straight onto Instagram.
What impact will this have on small businesses?
Instagram has also adapted to smaller businesses who have relatively small target audience. Video ads can be targetted at persepctive customers through interests or more specific geolocation demographics. Instagram also insists by the end of the year brands will have the ability to use their own customer data for ad targeting as Facebook's Custom Audiences enables. Instagram will also add the ability to target its ads based on what accounts people follow on Instagram. lastly, the expanded targeting options will allow advertisers to sync and sequence their Facebook and Instagram campaigns. For smaller businesses new to Instagram this tactic will be a brilliant starting point to increase interaction and followers.
Will Facebook and Instagram video ads really become interchangeable?
The only real issue lies with the high quality content bar that is on Instagram compared with the Facebook feeds. I see the two different channels as completely different experiences from a users perspective. Although it may not be that hard when we think about the shift in sales strategy for both channels. The companies have looked into ways that brands can buy and target their Instagram campaigns the same way they do their Facebook ones. The final question is, will this shift result in turning Instagram into just another place for Facebook ads to appear?
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