Instagram for Business Trends Shaping 2013
Video, 100 million users and the first real ad deals with major brands: what changed on Instagram this year, and what it means for everyone locked out of paid.
Instagram went from a photo-sharing app most marketers still treated as optional to a platform with real commercial infrastructure this year, even though most businesses still can’t buy an ad on it. Here’s what moved.
Instagram passed 100 million monthly active users
The platform crossed 100 million monthly active users in February, a figure that put it firmly past the point where marketers could dismiss it as a niche photography app. For brands with any kind of visual product, fashion, food, home goods, travel, it became hard to justify not having a presence there by year’s end.
Video arrived, aimed squarely at Vine
Instagram launched 15-second video in June, a direct answer to Vine, which Twitter had launched just months earlier and which had been pulling attention away from photo-only platforms. For brands, video meant a new format to experiment with inside a feed people were already used to scrolling slowly through, rather than a separate app to convince anyone to install.
The first native ads went to a short list of brands
In November, Instagram introduced its first-ever advertising, but only to a small handful of major partners: Michael Kors, Levi’s, Lexus, Ben & Jerry’s and a few others. There is still no self-serve option for the vast majority of businesses. That gap between “Instagram now has ads” and “your business can buy one” is the single most important fact for any small or mid-sized business assessing the platform this year.
Web profiles made content shareable outside the app
Instagram rolled out browser-accessible profile pages this year, letting content be viewed, embedded and linked to from outside the app itself. For businesses, that meant an Instagram photo could now be embedded in a blog post or shared as a plain web link, extending its reach well past people who happened to have the app open.
Organic strategy became the only strategy that mattered
With paid access closed to everyone but a short list of major brands, the businesses seeing real results this year were the ones treating Instagram as a genuine content channel: consistent posting, real engagement with followers and other local accounts and hashtag use built around specific, relevant terms rather than generic ones. That’s not a workaround, for now it’s simply the whole game.
What to expect going into next year
Instagram has been explicit that it plans to expand advertising access over time, and the current handful of launch partners is clearly a controlled test rather than a permanent limit. Businesses that spend this year building genuine organic engagement and a real following will be better positioned to make paid options work whenever that access eventually widens, rather than starting from zero the moment it does.
More on Marketing Strategy, or browse everything from 2013.
