Popular photo-sharing app Instagram has proved that it is not just popular with the everyday social media user, but also with advertisers too, as the platform sees an increase in the number of monthly active advertisers that has pushed it over the one million milestone.
This number represents a fivefold increase compared to the figure of last year, and a lot of this can be put down to the way in which the platform has transformed in a bid to face up to the increased competition from rival network Snapchat.
The app was once known for its simplicity and numerous filters that allowed users to enhance and share their photographs with their friends and others on the network. The company was purchased by Facebook back in 2012 for $1bn (£629m), and since then Facebook has imprinted its ethos and infrastructure on Instagram and allowed it to expand to a platform that is more than just an album of photos, but into something that allows users to communicate.
More than eight million businesses are now active on the platform and users can communicate with them directly through queries about their services. This is still a small percentage of its total number of users, which has now passed the 600 million user mark, with the company announcing this achievement in a blog post in December.
Statistics show that around 80% of all active Instagram users (approximately 480 million) now choose to follow a business on the network, with around 120 million of them interacting with a business this month alone.
Instagram has been including adverts in its regular news feed for some time now, with a number of high profile advertisers regularly featuring in users’ timelines. At the turn of the year, the company announced that it intended to add adverts to its Stories feature, and this has now been implemented.
With advertisers having multiple opportunities to advertise on the platform and reach out to a large audience, it may come as no surprise that the number of advertisers on the platform is now into seven figures.
Forbes recently published an article stating that Instagram is the top social network for engagement, listing its functionality and its visual nature as to why it is the best network to engage with users.
The Vice President of Instagram Business, James Quarles, has also hinted that the platform plans to provide more insights to businesses who choose to advertise on the site, including which posts would be the best to promote, as well as implementing a tool that would allow users to book appointments and other services via Instagram.
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[…] A number of businesses and organisations are now on the platform too, both to show off what they do on a daily basis and as a form of advertising. With Instagram continually evolving, businesses can now advertise both in the main feed of the site and in the Instagram Stories section. This has seen the network attract more than one million advertisers. […]