Running a business is hard. You have to acquire capital, employ a staff and, perhaps most importantly, promote your product. With email marketing, cold calling and social media at your avail, the options are endless when it comes to getting your brand out in the world. And, thanks to Instagram’s new update, you now have access to one more.
That’s right, Instagram is finally making business pages a possibility and the social media managers of the world are rejoicing. Much like their parent company Facebook, the popular photo-sharing app will feature a prominent “Contact” button for businesses that will allow users to easily reach out to the company in question. In addition, business owners will be privileged to detailed analytics and simple promotion tools that make ad production one thousand times easier for the every day marketer.
“We expect that many of the businesses that may use this function are not advanced marketers,” said Jim Squires, director of market operations at Instagram, to Mashable.
No longer will you have to list company information in the bio section and pray that someone actually looks at it for once. No longer will you have to assume your hashtags are working without the slightest bit of data. No longer will the burden of social media promotion fall on a company profile that requires you to pick a gender before signing up. The days of exclusionary business practices on the part of Instagram will soon come to an abrupt end! And by “soon,” we mean in a couple of months or so… and only in the US, Australia and New Zealand.
Image: Instagram
Having recently been acquired by Facebook, Instagram is looking to experience the exponential growth that their parent company has been enjoying for many years. While advertising efforts have shown promise, this move will demonstrate to investors and users alike that Instagram is ready to start evolving into something they actually need.
While you may be excited about this evolution, it is nothing compared to what is on the way. Instagram has been in the news recently for their plans to change the way photos are posted to users’ feeds. With a new algorithm, Instagram hopes to provide a more diversified, less chronological approach to their app.
Whether this update will be as well-received as Facebook’s changes remains to be seen. However, the mere fact that this long-standing, infamously-stagnant, photo-sharing app is actually taking the evolution of its product seriously is a step in the right direction. And thankfully, they have a company that knows what it’s doing guiding the way.
