The largest image sharing site, Instagram, was created in 2010. In a very short two years, it was acquired by Facebook for $1 billion in both cash and stock. Amazingly, the company only had 13 employees at the time of the acquisition - equating to a little more than $130 million per employee! The reason Facebook was willing to pay such a large amount for Instagram was due to the underlying demographics of its User base (and it should be noted that this purchase price paid by Facebook for a social network was dwarfed by Facebook's acquisition, two years on, of WhatsApp for which Facebook paid a whooping $19 billion). Facebook had a problem that in its best advertising market, the United States, it was begining to lose the momentum of new young users. Turns out that this group was spending more time on Instagram and making it the fastest growing social network among the teenage demographic. This age group is particularly attractive to advertisers as they have two characteristics that drive marketers to them. First, teenagers often drive discretionary purchase decisions within a household. Things like smartphones, music, online videos and even high-end electronics like sound systems and even high definition TVs. This alone makes them appealing. But probably their greatest attraction to advertisers is that it is a long held belief in the advertising business that teenagers and adults in their early twenties form brand loyalties that can last a lifetime. If true, and these marketers have had decades of data to show them that they are correct in their assumptions, this means that it is vital for the long-term success of brands to get to the influencers of this demographic and get them to like their brand (not unlike buying facebook likes) so they will establish the long term repeat buying pattern. Indeed, some marketers have observed that advertisements of beer may appear to be trying to get young people to buy beer, when in reality it is an attempt to develop a brand loyalty - even before the item can be consumed. Brands target the young people directly because, obviously, given the nature of teens, selling to the parents is not going to have a trickle down effect onto the teens as they tend to find anything from their parents unappealing (at the least).
Instagram is of interest to teens as it has the ability to instantly share what is happening in their lives with others by taking pictures on their smartphones and uploading them to their Instagram Page to be available to be seen by all of their followers (which in the case of most teens is their circle of friends). Teens really like to share socially their activities and this is the perfect vehicle. And Instagram has a way of making each image seem as if it were a high-grade photograph. The company uses a variety of filters which give the images that professional look - you rarely see a blurry image on Instagram. (As a interesting aside, Instagram's images are all square. This is taken from the types of photographs that were produced by the Polaroid Instamatic cameras from the 1960s and 1970s and is where Instagram draws its name). The truly wonderful photos that result from the filters really enhances the experience of sharing and yet, unlike video, it doesn't require a huge attention commitment from the viewer. In this age of short attention spans, this is perfect for sharing. The teens just need to have followers with whom to share their experiences with and if the parents feel as if their child is under-supported in this area, they can always buy instagram followers and help their teen with their fragile self-esteem. But sharing one's activities with friends and followers is actually a healthy and confidence building endeavor and one that most child behaviorists feel is a good activity, just so long as it doesn't overtake their normal activities (meaning become an obsession).
For parents, Instagram use is perhaps a little bewildering as they may not have the inclination to be constant sharers (although the success of Facebook becoming an entrenched part of life in the adult demographic might say otherwise as to adults willingness to share). But Instagram is easily viewed by most everyone, so it is easy to track the uploads, and indeed there are many very attractive and interesting Instagram pages used for marketing purposes by photographers, artists, groups and charities. To be helpful to those parents who want to appear to be "cool" to their younger teens, this video explains how to upload images from a smartphone to an Instagram page - something to learn and then pass along to your teen as if you knew it all along:
For parents, Instagram use is perhaps a little bewildering as they may not have the inclination to be constant sharers (although the success of Facebook becoming an entrenched part of life in the adult demographic might say otherwise as to adults willingness to share). But Instagram is easily viewed by most everyone, so it is easy to track the uploads, and indeed there are many very attractive and interesting Instagram pages used for marketing purposes by photographers, artists, groups and charities. To be helpful to those parents who want to appear to be "cool" to their younger teens, this video explains how to upload images from a smartphone to an Instagram page - something to learn and then pass along to your teen as if you knew it all along:
As we have shown, Instagram is a hit with the youth culture. It is also a popular social platform to promote brands and products and services as images can convey a lot of information and can be more thought provoking than video (viewing a video is very passive as it talks to you, viewing an image makes you develop the story). Advertising on Instagram is only in the early stages, which is why it is more important to develop a highly attractive Instagram page and circulate it as widely as possible. If need be, you can buy followers on Instagram to help spread out the contact points and get people to your page. Your page should have multiple images that tell a story of your brand or service and evokes some sort of emotional response from the visitor. Remember, you are not alone in this marketing endeavor. According to a recent study, over 60% of the top 100 brands as defined by "Interbrand" have a strong presence on Instagram and that engagement has increased on these brands by nearly 40% which the study said was led by such brand stalworts as Nike, Gucci and Adidas. Interestingly 98% of all images posted on Instagram by large brands are also posted on Facebook - so they don't need to worry about where to buy facebook likes as they are getting plenty on their own without the need for outside help, unless they take advantage of Facebook's advertising for facebook likes which they promote heavily. Although these brands share with Facebook, it is Instagram that really keeps the teenage demographic interested as seen here in this inforgraphic presented by SocialCulture:
Instagram is clearly a great place to have a marketing presence - especially if the younger demographic is a target market (and as we have pointed out, it is for almost everybody given the two characteristics of this demographic that is appealing to all types of marketers). We have mentioned Facebook, but should also touch upon Twitter. In the past year, Twitter's growth has stagnated, but its growth in the youth demographic has increased. Many of these teens are following more than just their favorite celebrities and athletes. An increasing number of them get their news exclusively from Twitter feeds of their favorite news outlets and blogs. A more interesting development, at least for marketers, is the growing use of Twitter as a means of communicating with a group of friends instantly. These friends must followers, but not necessarily from places that you can buy twitter followers. Teenagers are very social and it is that fact that drove the success of the social networks in the first place. They typically like to socialize in groups which is why Twitter may be the perfect instant communication vehicle. Sort of like a portable group walkie-talkie. Twitter is just in the early stages of fully developing their advertising avenues for its microblog - unlike Facebook which has refined the process to the extreme and has a plethora of demographic information and metrics which really allow an advertiser to target its preferred group of viewers. Indeed, it is this aspect that makes the social networks the most compelling marketing platforms of all-time. It is the ability of these providers, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (which are just the larger players) to gather data and then splice and dice that data into valuable pieces of information available for advertisers to target. No other medium in human history has enable such precision for marketers. Television, by contrast, is simply a shot in the dark.