Ads are taking over Instagram
And I couldn’t be happier.
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There’s a huge difference between Facebook and Instagram–you want to see the ads on Instagram. Brand messages are creative, artistic, fun, and exciting. The ads are in fact, so entertaining, you don’t even recognize most of them as advertisements.
On Instagram you have a shallow relationship with your followers. You follow strictly based on the visual content. On Facebook relationships are more complex. You like for different reasons and the difficulty of unliking a brand page forges a toxic relationship where they subject you to any brand content. The diversity of content creates a challenge for brands and a poor experience for users. Instagram makes it simple. Instagram is a platform where creativity thrives. Allowing brands to showcase their content in square boxes weeds out the uncreative technological laggards. It also allows the majority of branded content (the content I’m describing as ads) to go seemingly unnoticed as the ads they are.
The most creative brands have succeeded with free advertising for years.
Ads as Art
Advertising is a creative medium and Instagram is a creative platform. Forming a harmony of expression, these tiny square boxes give brands a mobile-friendly method of expressing themselves and their products.
On Instagram, more creative content excels at a higher rate than any other platform. You don’t see a endless newsfeed filled with links, photos, updates, etc.. You see images–aesthetic and artistic ones.
Fashion’s Best Friend
Instagram and fashion have been close friends for several years now. It makes sense, fashion houses generally create the best content when it comes to imagery. As a result, an entire culture of fashion fanfare has emerged across social platforms in the past few years.
Instagram makes users think they’re the creative director of their own lives.
Making it so simple to procure, produce, and share quality content, it’s easy to see why Instagram is a valuable tool for the socially inclined. Below, WoostGOD himself.
The Future of Advertising & Social
Instagram has fostered an environment where creativity thrives–one of the defining features ensuring the longevity of its platform. They don’t face the content issues that Facebook does today and they won’t disrupt the experience of their users when they start rolling out paid advertisements. This is likely the main reason for Facebook’s great unbundling–give brands more focused platforms to share their content.
There’s a huge difference between Facebook and Instagram right now:
On Instagram creativity wins, not interaction.
Creative brands have the luxury of knowing what kind of content works on Instagram. Brands don’t need to compete with click-bait titles and time-wasting listicles. Keep relationships shallow and reward the creatives, not the clickers.
You don’t see the ads on Instagram because you enjoy the brand messages. It’s easy for users to end the relationship but easier to embrace good content. As long as brand creativity continues to flourish, I couldn’t be happier with ads taking over Instagram.
