Instagram's marketing shift

There’s a multimillion-dollar marketing shift coming to Instagram as a result of the Facebook News Feed update, the launch of its Stories ad product and the popularity of influencers.

Socialbakers founder Jan Rezab said the move of advertising dollars from Facebook to Instagram will be “one of the most dramatic shifts” to hit social media.

Facebook still dominates in terms of the ad revenue it attracts, but Instagram is increasingly growing its share of ad revenue, research revealed. In six months, Instagram has lifted its share from 15% year-on-year.

The dollars still end up in the same place eventually, since Instagram is owned by Facebook.

"What this could mean is the majority of advertising in the next six to nine months will be happening on Instagram. This is huge and it's a multimillion-dollar shift," Rezab said, speaking at the Socialbakers Engage Bali event held today.

He also predicted Instagram will soon hit one billion users, which will also drive an increase in ad revenue as brands vie to get their attention.

In comparison to Twitter and Facebook, Instagram was found to drive the most user engagement on its posts – a metric that brands value.

Rezab revealed a dramatic drop of engagement for brands on Facebook, but said it wasn't the end for the platform.

The organic reach of brands has been less impacted than paid posts from brands on Facebook, which has dropped significantly (see chart below) since News Feed update was introduced, which deprioritised content from brands and publishers.

The social media marketing platform also found that the price of ads on Facebook rose 43% in Q4 of 2017 due to the increased demand on inventory.

Instagram's success will continue to impact Snapchat's growth and Rezab predicts Instagram will "completely overtake" Snapchat in popularity with brands. He added Snapchat could still turn things around and it's a medium he will be watching closely.

By Lindsay Bennett

Ref: www.adnews.com.au