Open up your social media account or a mobile app, and chances are you’ll see an advertisement. Companies have rolled out a slew of new advertising options.
Recently, Pinterest began selling “promoted pins”. Commercials areplayed when viewer’s stream is loading on TV provider apps like FiOS TV and Hulu. Facebook is also planning to roll out its auto-play video ads.
Just days ago, many Instagram users saw the first “sponsored” picture from Michael Kors. It received more than 230,000 likes and that number continues to grow. With approximately 150 million active users, Instagram has potential to become one of the most financially successful social media services;Orbecome irrelevant in just a few years from now.
Will Instagram stay focused on its social platform?
It’s easy to place ads on a social media website. The hard part is keeping the attention of users. To incorporate ads without losing users’ interest, Instagram needs to:
- Continue to innovate its services
- Not overpower users with more ads than they can handle
- Keep an eye on the unsuspected competition
Here are two social media websites that tried to monetize and failed. Hopefully Instagram can learn from the mistakes of others.
Flickr forgot about innovation
When Yahoo purchased Flickr, they tried to hold on to every penny and earn the most profit possible. Ads were placed on Flickr and money spent on innovation was cut.
Unfortunately for Flickr, Instagram was on the rise. While Flickr users were bombarded with ads, Instagram users were browsing quality images without being bugged by annoying ads. While Flickr was cutting costs on innovation, Instagram rolled out its mobile app.
It wasn’t hard for users to choose between the two photo-sharing social media websites. No ads and a mobile app ultimately helped Instagram rise above Flickr.
MySpace watched users flee to Facebook
Just a decade ago, MySpace had more than 100 million users and Facebook was just a concept in Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room. MySpace saw potential to become the top money-making social media site and began to display ads on pages.
Users showedno interest in these ads and rarely clicked, making it nearly impossible to sell ad space to companies. With hopes to make money quickly, MySpace focused solely on its advertising platform and forgot about its social platform.
When Facebook swept in, the MySpace population flocked to this new website that had a better social experience to offer users.
In the end, MySpace wound up with little money and few active users. The website has been relaunchedthis year but so far, it has not seen its previous levels of popularity.
via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://www.socialappshq.com/blog/2013/11/14/instagrams-promoted-photos-future-success-or-failure/
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