It was earlier in October that Instagram announced that they will start offering ads to their users and now the time has come where these ads have started being deployed in America.
The ads will be differentiated by the “sponsored” stamp in the top corner of the photo, where users would usually see the time stamp.
What do they hope to achieve from this?
Well, the answer is simple – more engagement. They aren’t offering this opportunity to everyone just yet, and are only starting with some well-established companies that are part of the Instagram community.
It’s a well-known pet hate to many that ads can irritate other users, thus meaning they leave the network. So how does Instagram plan on avoiding any hostility towards these posts?
On their blog the company explain: “If you see an ad that doesn’t interest you, you can tap the “…” below it to hide it and provide feedback about what you didn’t like. This will help us show you more interesting ads in the future.”
On one hand it offers Instagram the chance to push their creativity and engagement, the user still owns their own photos – that will not change; so will there be any drawbacks? Well, the first ads were deployed on Friday and they received numerous negative reviews, but as Facebook and Twitter have made their ad platforms a success, there is no reason why Instagram can’t, it’s all about the balance relevancy to the user and the volume of ads they are exposed to, cracking this formula is key.
So watch this space…
