Instagram, the photo and video sharing service owned by Facebook, has announced to add advertising features in Instagram stories to boost advertising revenues. The new ad features is currently being tested with major advertisers such as Nike, GM, and Airbnb. In February, ads will be tested by Turner Sports for cable network TNT’s airing of the NBA All-Star Game in New Orleans. Users will see full-screen ads in intervals while swiping through photos and videos on their Instagram Stories dash. The social network said more than 30 advertisers will be brought into the Instagram Stories.
Facebook, the parent company of Instagram, said Instagram will play a key role in in maintaining Facebook’s growth in ad revenue for 2017.
eMarketer expects Instagram to generate $3.64 billion in worldwide ad revenue in 2017, accounting for 12.3% of Facebook’s global ad business. In the US, Instagram would bring more than 20% of Facebook’s ad revenue. According to eMarketer, about 74% of US firms are planning to use Instagram to advertise their products this year, enabling Instagram to surpass Twitter as a favorite advertising platform. Last year, 53 percent of the US firms used Instagram for advertising their products.
“Instagram could end up being as strong a revenue component for Facebook as YouTube has been for Google,” said Noah Mallin, head of social for ad agency MEC Wavemaker.
With Instagram Stories, users and businesses can post pictures and videos that would disappear after 24 hours. Introduced in August 2016, this feature is currently used by about 150 million daily active users.
“It’s definitely gained importance,” said Ian Schafer, founder and chairman of ad agency Deep Focus, who said he plans to spend more money with Instagram.
Instagram came into existence in 2010. It allows users to take pictures and share them either publicly or privately on the app, as well as through several other social networking platforms. Instagram was created by Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom as a free mobile app in 2010. The app quickly became popular among internet users, and was able to create an active user base of over 100 million by April 2012. In 2012, Facebook bought it for about US$1 billion in cash and stock. Since then, the app has grown exponentially, due to ease of sharing images. In 2013, Instagram grew by 23%, while Facebook grew only by 3%. In the past two years, Instagram’s user base has more than doubled. It reached 400 million monthly active users in September 2015, and since then it had added another 100 million monthly active users by June 2016. These users were added at a faster rate compared to the previous 100 million users. In June 2016, Instagram hit a new milestone in its history by crossing the 500 million user mark. Instagram also revealed that over 80% of its users were based outside the U.S.
Smartphone users can install Instagram through the Apple App Store and Google Play. It can be run on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Windows 10 devices and Android handsets. Third-party Instagram apps are also available for BlackBerry 10 and Nokia-Symbian Devices.
You must be logged in to post a comment.