There’s been some pretty exciting news in the last couple of months for anyone who uses Instagram for business. The power of promoted posts is finally here and open to anyone. According to Business Insider, “Instagram has officially switched on its advertising API (application programming interface). It’s a major move for the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app that will almost immediately help transform it into a major mobile advertising business to rival Google and Twitter.
By opening up an API to partners, marketers can now — for the first time — start buying Instagram ads and planning their Instagram marketing in a more automated fashion, alongside their other digital ad buys on Facebook or Twitter.”
If you’ve been wondering how you can promote your business on Instagram – now is the time to get started. Rather than only being available to big companies with even bigger budgets (which is how the program was initially set up), buying ads on Instagram is now available to anyone. Just like your media planning and promoted posts on Facebook and Twitter – Instagram can be part of that same suite now too. How exciting, right?
In the past couple of years Instagram has quickly become one of the most popular and well-used social media platforms, giving users the opportunity to get pretty creative with imagery and photography. It’s been a fun new twist on social and certainly leads the way when it comes to mobile social media platforms. Adding the ability to use the platform for paid promotional posts simply sweetens the deal when it comes to using Instagram for business. Now “all advertisers can plan Instagram campaigns alongside their other digital ads and cross-promote, plan, and monitor their Instagram marketing activity — including photos that aren’t paid-for ads — across other social networks, all in a self-serve fashion, using third-party platforms.”
Over the last year Instagram has been adding some pretty cool feature, making the platform much more usable in the business space. From the announcement of their API test phase to the “shop now” buttons and “carousel ads,” the company is set to be the next big money maker for businesses across the globe. And, according to Hootsuite the new integrated Instagram capabilities will be a pretty awesome addition for marketers:
“This integration will also make marketers and social-media managers more efficient as they will no longer have to switch between their phone and computer to track all aspects of a social-media campaign. For example, if a new product is launched, responses to comments and engagement with users on Instagram can be carried out from the same window that is being used to engage followers on Twitter and Facebook. Everything is in one place.”
What’s your take on using Instagram for business? Have you tried it? Would you invest in a small ad campaign on the Instagram platform?
