Instagram Introduces New Analytic Tools

 App Becomes A More Viable Tool For Brand Promotion

Ever since Facebook bought Instagram for a cool $1 billion back in 2012, the photo sharing site has been in an enviable position. With the economic support of Zuckerberg’s social media empire behind it, it has been able to grow and develop without the immediate pressure of having to monetise the attention of its 150 million+ dedicated users.

Nothing good lasts forever, though, and the time has come for Instagram to start turning its attention to the uncool issue of revenue generation. That spectre has been floating around the app for about a year now, since Instagram started inserting ads into users’ feeds back in late 2013. Additionally Facebook leaked their Snapchat rival bolt via an Instagram banner ad last month, so users have had plenty of time to get used to the idea of beautifully filtered photos trying to sell them stuff.

Source: techcrash.net

Now it seems as though the app is starting to get serious about appealing to marketers. It’s rolled out a suite of deeper analytics to allow advertisers greater insight into how their campaigns are performing and being shared – or not, as the case may be. Although the service has been selling ads for a year, it’s been difficult for those investing to have any real ideas about the returns they’re getting. So far the system has relied upon the Instagram team manually updating advertisers on how their campaigns are getting on, which is good for building relationships with marketers but not so great if clients want a more data-heavy idea of how they’re doing.

While the new system will allow advertisers to see how their campaigns are doing in real time, they won’t be able to make adjustments with the same flexibility; for example, by making increased on-the-fly investments in campaigns which are garnering unexpected levels of attention. Presumably this won’t be long in coming, however.

On a functional level, businesses will not only be able to see how their investments are working but will be able to plan and execute them via a dashboard interface on their desktop – previously advertisers have had to operate via mobile along with the rest of Instagram’s users.

Source: oficinadamarca.com

When it comes to encouraging marketers to see their site as a viable option for investment, developers have two ways to go. They can alter the experience of using the app to make it easier for advertisers to get greater access to users, as Twitter have done in their recent decision to insert favourited tweets in people’s Timelines, even by people who the user doesn’t follow. The problem with this, as Twitter have discovered, is that people don’t like having unwanted content shoved in their faces for sake of appealing to marketers.

The alternative, which is the route Instagram seems to be following (for now), is to set up a sophisticated set of tools for marketers behind the scenes so that they can best manipulate the platform as it is. The main advantage of this, of course, is that since users don’t see anything they don’t have anything to complain about, apart from a sneaking sense of discomfort as posts which seem to prominently feature Coke products start to crop up more and more.

Majority Of Digital Media Now Consumed Via Apps

 Smartphones And Tablets Rule, Apparently

It doesn’t take much to realise the ubiquity of the smartphone. Just step outside, or look around your group of friends, or look at your own hand – you’re probably holding one right now. You can run your whole life from your phone, from banking to booking holidays to replying to emails to watching videos of baby pandas. All the most vital aspects of modern life are in your pocket.

It seems like something of a formality, then, for a recent survey to reveal that mobile apps account for the majority of our time spent using digital media. 52% of our online activity takes place through apps, and if you include mobile browsing that figure jumps to 60%. Desktop-based digital media consumption thus accounts for only 40% for our online lives.

Source: aptito.com

Also somewhat notably, while people are consuming more digital media than ever (a 24% increase on last year) that media is coming from fewer and fewer sources. 42% of all app time on smartphones takes place in the user’s most used app – which in most cases means Facebook, especially with those aged 25-34 who spend 18.5% of their time on apps on the social network. Three out of every four minutes of app usage takes place on one of the user’s top four apps.

What the data also shows, interestingly, is that there is a dedicated base of app power users: 7% of smartphone users account for almost half of all download activity in a given month. Most users, however, spend their time on a few main apps. Discounting functional apps like Google Maps and Gmail, Facebook is by far the most used followed by YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. Despite all the fuss made over exciting new social networks, amongst the older generation there is a lean towards old stalwarts: Words With Friends and Solitaire both beat out Pinterest in the 55+ demographic.

The main takeaway from all this, though, is that social networking, and the internet in general, is going mobile at a far more rapid pace than anyone really seems to be anticipating. Just as ten years ago the idea that someone would move into a new house and not bother to install a landline phone would seem ridiculous, perhaps a decade from now the desktop computer will be seen as an anachronism in comparison to the ease and portability of smartphones and tablets. Particularly with the gradual shift of data off local servers and into the cloud – the placing of the iCloud app as the 11th most used app reinforces this – means that the additional memory which a PC provides is of less and less relevance.

Source: blog.eyesurf.info

What is clear, from the fact that social media takes up a quarter of all time spent on mobile apps, is that the increase in mobile usage is driven by a desire for connectivity as much as for convenience. Especially among the 18-24 demographic, where all but three of the top ten apps by use are social (the three exceptions being Pandora Radio, Netflix, and iFunny – the latter of which is arguably at least partly social), it is clear that social networking and the app market make for perfect, and lucrative, bedfellows.