Instagram Gets Into Advertising And What It Can Mean For Your Nonprofit
Last week Instagram, which is
owned by Facebook, announced that it was developing its advertising platform.
Instagram has over 300 million users. Facebook has reached over 1.44 billion
users. Facebook and, now Instagram, are constantly working to improve the user
experience and make enhancements to have their users, essentially, never want to
leave the social media worlds they help create.
With the ever-increasing push
for high quality content coupled with great imagery and videos, this is an
opportunity for nonprofits. We know that a picture is worth a thousand words
and what is being rolled out now can be a game-changer for nonprofits that use
Instagram.
Previously, when individuals on
Instagram saw something that was of interest to them, for example, a product or
service they liked (because of a great visual), they would take a screen shot
of it. This was the best they could do and then hopefully remember to research
it or buy it later.
Instagram is now adding the
following buttons to posts: "Shop Now", "Install Now",
"Learn More" and "Sign Up". If you take a look at the
pictures of what the sponsored ads will look like, you can see the buttons are
nonintrusive and the look is seamless. This is meant to not impact the user
experience.
Let's say that one of your
nonprofit followers on Instagram sees a great picture related to your mission
and there is a "Learn More" button, they will be then taken to your
site. If you're really good at fundraising, you could send them to your donate
page, which has even more reason now to be thoroughly engaging.
Perhaps you're looking to get
more individuals involved in your team event to help raise awareness for cancer
or some other disease. Imagine the possibilities now that Instagram allows you
to seamlessly add a "Sign Up" button, which features a great image
above it! What if you're doing a fundraiser and you have great visuals you post
on Instagram as sponsored ads during the course of your campaign? You can tell
quite a compelling story, raise more money and even gain more followers if you
plan and market it well.
Social Media Sponsorship
Opportunities
Instagram has benefited from
being part of Facebook. We know that Facebook has pushed nonprofits away from
organic reach to sponsored reach. The free ride is over and Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms need to make a profit, and
they will do it through sponsored advertising.
As of this writing, I do not
know what the rate will be for organizations that want to sponsor ads within
the Instagram platform. However, you can bet that it won't be expensive.
Facebook already has two million businesses, nonprofits and others boosting
their posts through paid sponsorship for as little as $5 USD. Facebook has
built solid targeting and analytics functionality. Nonprofits who are paying to
boost their posts or pages are easily able to target their audiences based on
keywords, age, gender, etc. They are then able to see performance and know the
posts that resonate better with their constituents, so they can enhance their
messaging. Instagram will have the same type of targeting and analytic tools making
advertising much more effective.
Stay tuned to this space for
more on the changes in digital marketing and social media that are making it
much more cost effective and easier for nonprofits to spend their precious
dollars.
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