The potential market on Instagram is global and holding strong at over one billion monthly active users. Clearly the channel is a firm favourite with consumers.
A breakdown of the demographics of Instagram reveals the platform is pretty evenly split between male and female users, with women slightly tipping the balance at 56.3 percent. Researchers suggest the split is partially because women have historically been the documenters of family life via photography and additionally because the flattering nature of the platform and complimentary apps such as FaceTune enable users to access effortless beauty to portray themselves and their lifestyle.
Instagram is also a way to reach younger consumers with 65 percent of users being aged between 18 and 34 years old.
Approaching this internet savvy ‘ad-blocker’ generation through native advertising on the platform of their choice yields far better conversions than say digital display ads, and in fact 70 percent of Instagram users are already using the platform for product discovery. According to Instagram’s statistics, 130 million Instagram accounts tap on shopping posts every month.
By offering advertisers a direct line to young, and in particular female, consumers who are looking to learn more about brands and products on the platform, Instagram won over marketers – but why influencer marketing?
Why influencer marketing is effective on Instagram
In a nutshell, consumers are following content creators on Instagram – 65 percent of them. For women the number is even greater with 70 percent of women preferring to follow content creators on Instagram over any other social media channel.
Marketers also have options, choosing between static posts or stories which sit at the top of the feed gaining even more visibility and therefore brand awareness.
Instagram’s big advantage is that it’s an extremely time efficient way to do influencer marketing (great for your return on investment). For static posts, there’s no need to film and edit a video as for YouTube, so the turnaround on posts is much quicker. Stories can include short videos, but they are limited by the platform to 15 seconds, again far less effort than a 10 minute plus YouTube video.
Long form content is available on Instagram too with IGTV. On this feature, videos of between one minute and one hour can be posted, although the longer the video the more time the content creator will need to deliver it.
Another plus point for Instagram: there are around 500 thousand active content creators on the platform, with micro content creators often seen by users as more relatable and likely to respond to them. This leaves significant scope for varied campaigns and experimentation.
Our tip, combine Instagram and YouTube high-volume influencer marketing. Natalie Turner, Business Development Manager at Matchmade, has over four years of experience in influencer marketing across multiple platforms. She shares her thoughts on Instagram and explains why a cross-channel strategy can lead to the most powerful results.
“Influencer marketing on Instagram compliments influencer marketing efforts on other channels. For example, most men prefer to follow content creators on YouTube. If you are targeting both genders, a combined strategy incorporating the two platforms is likely to generate the best results.
“Even with a very specific target group collaborating with a combination of Instagram and YouTube content creators can be more effective.
“Content creators active on both Instagram and YouTube do not have the exact same audience on each platform. This means that you will reach new potential customers simply by asking the content creator to talk about your product on both accounts.
“At the same time, you are increasing your conversions with consumers who are reached twice. This audience gains a second touchpoint with your product which makes them more likely to convert. As in all marketing, multiple touchpoints drive higher conversion rates.
“Lastly, Instagram influencer marketing efforts can be easily synced with activities on YouTube because users can swipe up in an Instagram story post to the YouTube link and watch the video while they are engaged.
“Instagram’s efficiency as well as its flexibility with the number and quality of available content creators and ease of incorporating your efforts into a cross-channel strategy also means influencer marketing on this platform is highly scalable.”
Is Instagram right for your product?
Instagram markets itself as a purely visual photo sharing app. Posts are usually limited, with users perhaps posting once or twice a day on Instagram maximum rather than uploading an entire photo album in one go like on Facebook for example.
For this reason, the aesthetic quality of the images on Instagram is also prised. And indeed the content creator accounts on the platform that proved the most engaging in 2019 were profiles that focused on photography, with engagement rates averaging 3.3 percent.
If your product can be represented well through enticing images, Instagram is a must.
By its nature, Instagram is also a lifestyle orientated channel. Users show their followers a glimpse into their lives: what they’re eating, where they travel, what products they use, makeup looks, the list goes on. It is a visual representation of their best life.
If your product lends itself in any way to a lifestyle category, Instagram more than any other social platform is likely to generate your best results, especially if your product can be shown in a personalised manner by the content creator you are collaborating with.
Similarly if you are targeting women, your best results will come from Instagram.
If your product is aimed at millennials or generation z, Instagram should also be part of your strategy.
But you might also be surprised which products adapt to Instagram. Online bank Revolut used Matchmade to run a combined Instagram and YouTube influencer marketing campaign and saw a significant jump in engagements and conversions by adding the platform to their marketing mix.
Instagram influencer marketing challenges and Matchmade’s solution
Instagram is not without its challenges, that’s why we developed Matchmade. Our software makes Instagram influencer marketing simple, effective and scalable.
With our tool you can jump straight into sponsored story posts, this will help you maximise conversions by adding a direct link in the post to your product page or associated YouTube content.
Identifying your best brand fit content creators on Instagram is another pain point. The process is time consuming and Instagram as a platform does not offer a solution. Matchmade’s in-built algorithm does. Fill in your requirements and our software will find your matching content creators instantly.
What differentiates Matchmade’s Instagram algorithm from others in the industry? It’s based purely on the data and engineered for accuracy. As a global multi social network with years of experience firstly with gaming content creators, a vertical where data-based decision making is essential, we bring the same attitude and analytical approach to Instagram.
Enabling you to make data-based decisions with your Instagram influencer marketing doesn’t stop there, on Matchmade you’ll have access to the audience demographics you can’t see on Instagram, such as age, gender and location.
Every Instagram content creator who signs up to our tool shares their demographics, helping you more accurately forecast your return on investment from the collaboration.
With this data, Matchmade also helps you understand your Instagram content creators’ value for more cost-effective influencer marketing. Without the demographics it is difficult to understand how much to pay an content creator, our transparency solves this and as our data collection grows we get more and more accurate in determining the right content creator pricing structure.
During and after your campaign our results tracking feature enables you to understand immediately the true value of your influencer marketing efforts and measure the success of your collaborations. See in real-time the views, clicks and installs generated from your content creators’ content.
Working with multiple Instagram content creators or a cross-channel influencer marketing strategy is more efficient with Matchmade’s campaign management features allowing you to focus on campaign-level targeting and pricing parameters and follow your campaigns’ performance from one intuitive dashboard.
Matchmade takes the pain out of Instagram influencer marketing, so reap the benefits of advertising effectively on this powerful platform today.
Learn more about Matchmade’s Instagram feature by booking a demo call with one of our experts.