The Latest in #DigitalMarketing & #SocialMediaMarketing – March 24, 2016

Here is our take on the most notable stories in Digital and Social Media Marketing from last week.

Last week it was all about Instagram. The quickly growing, photo-based social media platform announced some new features and new updates. While all of the updates should benefit businesses, marketers and content creators, one update is stirring up some
controversy among their users.

Instagram to roll out new Facebook-like features for advertisers

Marketing Dive | March 10, 2016

Instagram is adding a bunch of great tools for businesses, marketers and content creators. The two that stick out the most are the addition of business profiles and more detailed analytics for posts. Both of these tools are said to be apart of Instagram’s
larger effort to make their advertising platform more like Facebook’s.

Our Take

These two additions are, quite frankly, very overdue. However, I’m sure all beneficiary parties of these new tools agree that it is better late than never. It will be interesting to see how Instagram presents these new company profiles in their app.
Hopefully, they will add a section that will give users an option to ‘explore’ company profiles (as they currently do for personal profiles) and make a conscious effort to connect users with businesses they may find of interest.

Instagram Is Adding an Algorithm to Reorder Feeds Based on the Posts Users Like

Ad Week | March 15, 2016

In a move that is stirring up a lot of controversy among users, Instagram announced that they are implementing an algorithm to news feeds that will reorder the way in which posts appear. Since its inception, Instagram’s only news feed option was to
display posts in reverse chronological order. With this new algorithm, Instagram is going to show posts in an order based on their perception of which posts an individual will like the most. Predictably, users
are not keen on having Instagram collect their data to guess what they are interested in.

Our Take

At this point it is unclear whether Instagram is making this algorithm the new standard or a second sorting option. Their parent company, Facebook, does offer multiple feed sorting options, so to see the latter happen is not completely farfetched. Regardless,
this move is much needed if Instagram is to grow their advertising revenue. In a blog post of their own, Instagram admitted that users do not see 70% of their feeds, which means
that they are not seeing ads. This new algorithm will make sure that they have sufficient ad inventory that is seen by users.

Stat of the Week

via Global Web Index | March 14, 2016

According to a study conducted by the Global Web Index, 80% of all Facebook users say that they visit the service daily. Only 9% said that they visit the social media platform “less-than-weekly”.

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