In the morning people used to turn on the radio or TV: now people roll out the bed, hit the snooze button, and check their smartphone, emails or look at their favourite social networking app. We have made a lifestyle where we love to share moments, we have created a custom where this is it just the norm.
Launched in 2010, Instagram is an online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing, and social networking app. After registering and setting up a profile, you can share photos, and like and follow people or photos within a global, online photo community.
Let’s talk data. Data is the new gold of our economy and our increasingly data-driven lifestyles add another dimension to this. Data is crucial to the success of all marketers and Instagram has lots of ‘data gold’ too. Here are just a few figures to help you get a better picture.
As of June 2016, Instagram has a worldwide user base of 500 million users (and counting). There been over 40 billion photos shared on its platform to date and the average of number of photos posted daily is estimated at around 80 million. The split between Android and iPhone platforms for the app is estimated at around 50/50. Since its launch, the social app steamrolled to success after success, eventually being bought by the social media giant, Facebook.
Social platforms are a form of influence through communication. Information is displayed on a small screen with sound, colour and image. For word, there is Twitter; for video, YouTube. In today’s social media landscape if you have an audience you can sell a product or push your vision, lifestyle or mind-set, to a range of cultures and subcultures. A picture has gone from being worth a thousand words, to being seen by a thousand eyes – instantly.
When there is growth, change follows. New ideas are implemented. Following the takeover by Facebook, Instagram has introduced business accounts with data, analytics and, importantly, with advertising. A business account allows you to view how many followers you have and conduct analytics on post interaction and impressions, such as the best time of day for you to engage with your followers, and where they are from.
These features are all now available by converting your account from a standard account to a business account and connecting it to a Facebook page. You will have access to multiple platform advertising, giving you the ability to run ads on the same platform from which you trying to grow an audience, including Facebook.
Your business account analytics dashboard will display the data that brands and companies would like to know about your audience for them to consider endorsements for campaigns, products or shout outs. The is no average in terms of how much you can charge for posting or shout outs as some people charge per follower, others have a set prices for offers.
This is where Instagram meets revenue for account holders. Like all things it takes time to grow a profitable account so don’t think you can start today and be a hit tomorrow. You have to know how it works so you can build. Remember the basics of knowing what you want to achieve and the intended purpose of the platform.
It’s all about perfecting your skills in creating content and taking pictures. Never over populate your feed with constant selfies (unless you’re a fashion model). Ten photos of the same things from different angles are not cool. No poor quality blurry images. Never over filter.
Content is king and only the strong and the creative will survive. When choosing your content, photo, or videos, if it is text over image makes sure it’s a good quality image, the text is visible and, most importantly, that your posts are engaging. There are tools available to help you enhance your content – apps such as Boomrang and Canva. In content it can go from one extreme to another. Instagram is a platform for escapism, after all. But it can be used for good in the right hands.
For promotion, it’s all about the hash tags and location. These are the Instagram content locators that people use to see what they want to see, but this does get abused as not all hash tags display what you expecting. Tagging 15 or 30 keywords in the descriptions is a bit cheesy but it can help your photo to be discovered. It may look absurd but if you want your posts to get ranked it’s not a bad plan of action.
To build a profile, interaction is the name of the game: liking other people’s posts and pictures, following them and commenting, replying back, sending direct messages and so on. Even though it just pictures, you still have to be social on social media.
The top accounts generally come from musicians, influencers and sports stars, or are comedy and parody ones, with a further popular subset of travel and luxury life accounts.
So what to do when you now have an active profile with 10 – 20k followers and receive 1.5k likes per post? Sounds good doesn’t it, but even if your content can draw an active following, it does not mean the money starts rolling in it. You need a strategy in order to request money from an audience.
You have to treat your Instagram profile as if you are showing an elegant portrayal of yourself. Aesthetically pleasing is a must at all times, even though this form can depend on your content and niche. Ultimately Instagram was created to share photos with an online global photo social community. That was its intended purpose, but over time things can change, notably with advertising and brands, products and endorsements.
The main, original purpose of Instagram could make you lose focus too. While I am not saying what you should and shouldn’t do, I usually do ask myself what am I trying to achieve when I use Instagram. While some argue that doing something just for the sake of getting it on Instagram – “doing it for gram” – is wrong, the whole purpose of Instagram is sharing these events and pictures. That is why it was created. So while using it, see if you can make some revenue – but be aware that, just like television, people can watch any channel.
“To gram, or not to gram” that is the question
You can also follow me on Instagram. Below is some further data that may be of interest, if you’re looking to target Instagram as a platform on which to build a presence.
Data gold about Instagram
- Estimated number of Instagram users in the U.S. by 2018: 106.2 million
- Estimated number of Instagram users in the U.S. in 2015: 77.6 million
- Percentage of Instagram users that are from outside the U.S.: 80%
- Percentage of all US social media users that use Instagram: 51.8%
- Country with the strongest Instagram penetration in the Middle East/North Africa region: Saudi Arabia
- Percentage of Canadian social network users that use Instagram monthly: 89%
- How many Instagram photos have been shared: 40 billion photos
- Average Number of Instagram Photos Posted Daily: 80 million
- Amount some super-users of Instagram reportedly charge for a sponsored post: $100,000
- Most engaged industry on Instagram: Fashion
- Average sales order value for visitors referred by Instagram: $66.75
- Instagram visitor conversion rate 1.08% for purchasing item after visiting account
- Number of business profiles on Instagram: 1.5 million businesses
- Best day to post on Instagram (by Engagement rate): Wednesday
- Number of Instagram advertisers: 500,000
Data provide by DMR 2016