Instagram Marketing

    Last week, my blog was about marketing with Facebook, this week I will be talking about marketing with Instagram. What is different about this week's blog is that I have personal experience, and a lot of it, using Instagram and its features. Instagram was one of the first social media platforms I downloaded, along with apps like Snapchat and Vine. As I have about 10 years of experience using Instagram, I feel I am more knowledgeable about its features and algorithm than I am with Facebook. Most of what I know about Facebook is what came from last week's textbook chapter. Although I know much of what Instagram has to offer, I still had much to learn from a marketing and business perspective. What I found most interesting from the textbook is many people come to the app just for shopping purposes. 

    According to the Stukent textbook, 70% of shoppers come to Instagram for their shopping needs. Personally, I have bought products on Instagram before, but made the purchase due to an advertisement in my feed. This brings me to my next point which is Instagram shop and the features along with it. Instagram and Facebook are very similar in their business profiles as they are both owned under Meta. Therefore, they both allow businesses to create their own profile to allow customers to access their products and services directly through the Instagram app. This profile also allows businesses to interact right with customers and track all sales analytics. Like Facebook, Instagram allows businesses to see insights into their demographics and advertise based on age, gender, or location. 

    Another great tool that Instagram provides to businesses is the ability to post all types of content. In addition to long form video like Facebook, Instagram has a reels feature which puts short or long form videos in a feed similar to apps like TikTok. I thought it was very interesting that Instagram reels get more views on average worldwide than TikTok, according to the Stukent textbook. This not only surprised me, but apparently businesses still post more stories than reels according to the textbook. As we have now talked about the two best platforms for advertising in terms of numbers, Instagram, and Facebook, next time we will move into other forms of social media that can be used by businesses.