Last week it became known that Instagram plans to open its advertising platform to all advertisers. We asked market participants about what this initiative could lead to.
With a MAU of more than 300 million, the social photo sharing platform has long been a tidbit in the eyes of advertisers. Moreover, the interest is so lively that the lack of widely available tools did not prevent the emergence of a shadow advertising mechanism – “inviting”, – said in an interview with App2Top.ru Damir Feyzullov, SMM Director at PR Partner.
In his opinion, such a practice, which leads to the following of Instagram users with advertising accounts, has hit the loyalty of the audience. In this context, the emergence of an official set of tools, if it does not deprive inviting of meaning, then, at least, it will lead to the rejection of a number of brands, which, according to Dmitry Dzyumin, account director of the PR bureau “Freud”, are completely ineffective in terms of sales: “if you really want to sell something, and if you don’t get hundreds of likes and primitive comments like “wow!” or “very cool!”, you have to try very hard.”
As for Instagram as a platform for promoting games, Semyon Umilin, CEO of the Instach advertising exchange, considers it a good tool in this matter. One of the important advantages of the site, he highlights the ability to post 15-second videos directly in the feed: “users like to watch fast videos, and the video series perfectly demonstrates the possibilities of the game. Thus, mobile developers increase the chances that people will actually watch and watch a video about their game (unlike other social networks) and decide to download it.”
However, in his opinion, the appearance of an advertising platform is more of a plus for the network itself than for developers: “with the advent of an additional advertising channel on Instagram, this platform will become even more popular among mobile game developers.”