Adapting to the Ever Changing World of Social Media
The Coexistence of Facebook and Instagram: How Advertisers Can Best Use Both Platforms
Forward By Joe Monastero, Executive Director, Global Field and LIU Enrollment Strategy
We have all accepted the fact that traditional marketing went away sometime around the middle of the movie Independence Day when the aliens were busy blowing everything up with their giant space ships. With the advent of digital media, blu ray, and high speed internet has come an ever changing, evolving variety of platforms through which we can virtually interact with each other. For every modality in which we prefer to engage – orally, visually, aurally, and even tactilely, it seems 'there is an app for that'. While some apps are short-lived, engaging one group or another for a moment, some have established themselves as mainstays, including the big four; Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter.
In the below article, Kathleen Engle explores how Facebook and Instagram have impacted how marketers approach an audience. Both use photos (the magical vehicle to deliver a thousand words) to convey their messages, yet incorporate words in different ways. With our global enrollment team, we have been actively using Facebook for a while, and recently increased the amount of Instagram usage to promote our institutions. In 2016, this will continue to increase, and so we must all become more familiar with the ways in which these tools can be used to enhance our recruitment efforts. The one single most powerful message I learned when I first was exposed to these two apps was one that applies to all of us; you do not have to be a marketing guru to effectively use Facebook or Instagram, BUT, in order to be effective today, you MUST use Facebook and Instagram. So, if you don't already have an account, create one today, start using it to engage your students, post photos from fairs and seminars, and dive into the deep end of the social media ocean.
The Coexistence of Facebook and Instagram: How Advertisers Can Best Use Both Platforms
Published on socialmediaweek.org by Kathleen Engle, 25 February, 2016
Adaptly has recently seen a divide between traditional digital platforms and autonomous platforms’ advertising campaigns. Ruth Arber, Director of Solutions at Adaptly, explains that what’s unique about autonomous platforms is that they can support multiple advertising formats, including native and search, making your campaign dynamic to reach a larger audience. The largest autonomous platforms are unsurprisingly Facebook and Instagram.
According to Jessica Sherrets, Brand Development Lead at Instagram, “images are truly universal.” It’s a place for discovery, as a platform for social, photographers, and artist. The Instagram community is global and has engaged users: with 400 million users spending an average of 21 minutes per day.
Most people sign up for Instagram because of their friends and family, followed by interests and celebrities. Millennials are also downloading apps to support their Instagram, like Boomerang and Layout.
“Nearly half of users follow a business on Instagram,” and are likely to click on a business’ link for more information. When Instagram launched their advertising capabilities, for the first time you could click on an image and be taken out of Instagram to the advertiser’s website.
The relationship between Instagram and Facebook is inspiration and personal discovery, and people spend a significant amount of mobile minutes on both. Targeting these audiences strategy relies on creativity and knowing your audiences across both.
Facebook has huge scale, and Instagram has a heavy millennial audience. The data of how audiences are responding to creative on each platform differs. Ruth suggests that advertisers should test different creative campaigns and look at the data as you advertise on each platform. One size does not fit all.
Josh Machiz, Director of Integrated Marketing, Nasdaq, sees video ads as the most successful advertising format on Facebook and Instagram. As video viewing is becoming more advanced, such as 360 and motion videos, Josh sees that the more new and exciting the viewing experience, the more successful the campaign.
Kristin Rolla Mirek, VP of Multi-Platform Development & Marketing at TV Land at Viacom, said that when advertising for Younger, the first season they advertised heavily on Facebook. For season 2, they leaned more on Instagram because she has built the audience organically on that platform.
Also, as the platforms change the advertising has to change. Kristen saw video ads being extremely successful last year on Facebook, but now that more advertisers are using pictures and videos on Facebook, she’s using text heavy ads to break through the clutter.
Facebook does have a more robust audience, and has been around longer than Instagram, so the audience data is more nuanced on Facebook.
As we’ve seen, Instagram has continued to grow their platform to develop helpful features. Canvas ads on Instagram are what the panel is most excited about, which will start to roll out in the near future.
Innovative ideation
Tactics, Strategies, and Innovation from the Field