It’s no secret that the landscape of social media has become increasingly visual. So – not surprisingly – Instagram has become a behemoth, with a community of more than 400 million active users. When it sold to Facebook back in late 2012, advertisers were excited about the potential for advertising; unfortunately, the gradual rollout of advertising has only been available to large brands, and at an extremely premium price. This was, in essence, to help create some order around how to implement targeted advertising without turning off the user base. Well, Facebook officially announced that it was opening up the platform to all of its current advertisers, regardless of size.
Built right into the current Facebook advertising platform, brands and marketers can now simply select their connected Instagram account as one of the assets when creating their new ads. The ads, which are specifically targeted and appear in a users Instagram timeline, allows the use of a ‘learn more’ button (or similar call to action) and also supports both video (15 seconds) and multi-image carousel ads. Users can then click the call to action button to visit the brand/product online – a feature that wasn’t previously available.
It remains to be seen if this move will open a floodgate of Instagram advertising, and how users will ultimately interact with the ads on the platform, but it does present some interesting new opportunities for brands and agencies to reach new audiences with clever marketing. It will likely also prove to be a great way for builders – and realtors alike – to market new homes to potential buyers.
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