Instagram has become a shopping mall
Apps, tools and bots to grow faster and buy followers on Instagram sprang up like mushrooms. And there were more difficult situations for parent company Facebook. Instagram, Facebook's sweet little sister, usually escaped the dance. Smartphone addiction, fake news, data theft, polarization, manipulated elections ... all the fault of Facebook. You rarely see the word Instagram in articles about these heavy topics. While we all know very well that Instagram is one and the same company.
But Instagram is doing something right, even though it has increasingly become a Facebook clone. A sign of the times could have been that Instagram's founders left in 2018.
The real reason is only speculated about. But the vast difference in visions of this community and the app undoubtedly played a major role. Sarah Frier, in her book No Filter , for which she spoke to more than 300 (former) employees and investors of Facebook and Instagram, wrote: “Systrom and Riegel and the other original Instagram employees wanted to build a community where art and creativity were important, but instead, they built a shopping mall.” Ouch.
She was right: with the placement of the shopping icon in the main navigation (September 2020), Instagram has truly become a shopping mall. Everything that is for sale, you can now easily shop on Insta. In addition, every entrepreneur can advertise on Insta, and that also happens in abundance with products or services that we did not know we needed. But they are well targeted, these advertisements, because Facebook has so much data from its users. They know exactly what you like. Social commerce, that's what it's called. Instagram is going to make that big.
Personal, private and temporary
Thanks to channels like Insta, Snapchat and Tiktok it has become clear that brands need to behave like people. We want to talk to each other and preferably in private . Stories and the DM environment are taking off after 2016, because young people also find it very pleasant when not everything is openly played out. They are well aware of when something is public or behind the scenes.
And stories are also temporary, a feature that traditional marketers do not seem to understand. While temporary content in an overcrowded timeline is still so logical. And certainly for young people who really do not need to save everything. 24 hours, and otherwise another chance tomorrow. There is an opportunity for companies: beautiful, screen-filling temporary content with which you can really let your company come to life. No more talk picture, like in the message feed, but people in action, showing the process, the way there. Video is an important form of content, which imitates real life.
The interaction stickers in stories keep viewers engaged and participating. But the more human, the more interaction. Being genuinely interested in your followers can make a significant contribution to the growth of your business.
#Challengeaccepted
Another way to grow your business on Instagram is to participate in challenges . Something that has also become popular through social media. On other platforms such as Youtube and Tiktok, these challenges are also immensely popular, but as soon as they come to Instagram, everyone can participate.
The question is: why do we challenge each other on social media? And why do people like to participate so much? Think back to the #icebucketchallenge, the #10yearchallenge and #womensupportwomen. More and more often it is not just about posting a photo and a text, but about actually doing something. What do you think of the #100daysofsketching? Or #blackouttuesday?
Photo, text, hashtags, you've done your bit. Taking action on social media is a piece of cake. When buy bulk sms service Obama called for the so-called 'call-out' messages to also be enforced, many people woke up. In the words of the president: that's not activism! This message has not yet reached everyone. During #blackouttuesday, people and companies also placed a black square that did not fully understand what the intention was. These accounts were then tackled hard. And that is what social media achieves: a public conversation. 'Pretending' is no longer an option thanks to this woke generation.
Young people seem to feel unrepresented in 'old' media more often due to a lack of inclusivity. That's why they often take matters into their own hands and start their own media channel. Just look at accounts like @zeikschrift and @damnhoney .
Narcissistic and activist platform
Instagram is both a narcissistic and an activist platform. A place where we all participate in challenges, but also a place where we communicate with each other one-on-one. Fortunately, we don't see birthdays there yet and we can't create events, like on Facebook. But who's to say that Mark Zuckerberg doesn't already have plans for that?
The move to make Reels important (also in the main navigation since Sep 2020) seems like a new move to bind even younger people to the app. Reels is a copy of the type of content you post on TikTok, audio mixed with video. What Mark also realizes is that young people will no longer come to Facebook, so it seems like a smart move. But please never allow links in text or add a share button to messages.
Then Instagram could be over.