When Facebook bought Instagram back in April 2012, it was hoped that Instagram would very soon get the robust tools and access to data that marketers were happy to get from Facebook. It appears the time has finally come for brands to get these tools on Instagram as well, a growing platform that has become something of a marketer’s best friend. The platform boasts some very high engagement rates, quickly catching up to Twitter in terms of users in the U.S. With only 71 percent of the Interbrand 100 brands on the platform, this may be the extra nudge that was needed to rope in the other 29 percent. After all, the ads have been proven to get some great results for a typically elusive audience.
The data is available in real-time and will give marketers access to figures like impressions, reach and engagement on both paid and unpaid posts. Marketers will also be able to preview ads before they even run to ensure quality.
Instagram discussed the new tools in a blog post yesterday: “An advertiser will now have access to a real-time campaign summary and data showing how their target audience is responding to each of their sponsored photos. Also, brand marketers will be able to better understand the best time of day to post a photo or video.”
Instagram has ramped up brand activity on the platform significantly recently, with a 49 percent year over year jump in brand posts with nearly 3 times as many actions on those posts than on similar posts on Facebook. Some concerns have been raised recently that with this significant brand activity growth, there is also the negative side effect on overall quality of the platform as brand imposters are also flooding the platform. We may soon see verified accounts on Instagram similar to Twitter and Facebook to solve this issue, but in the meantime brands are policing their reputations on the platform.
A look at Instagram’s new brand insights dashboard.
Source: AdWeek
