The Power of Instagram Stories

In the world of social media the popularity of platforms rises and falls. Last year the social media darling was Snapchat. In 2018 Instagram, and especially Instagram Stories, has become a marketing force.

Why is Instagram a Marketing Powerhouse?

Instagram has become indispensable to many marketers for the usual reasons--it's large and it's effective in reaching and motivating attractive target audiences. Some 2018 statistics to back that up:

• It has 1 billion active monthly users as of mid-2018. Yes, that's billion with a b!
• Its growth is expected to continue, as compared to Facebook, Twitter and even Snapchat, all of whose growth in number of accounts has plateaued.
• Instagram users spend an average of 53 minutes each day on the Android version of the app.  
• Of primary importance to marketers, it is the platform of choice of 18 - 34 year-old consumers worldwide, a notoriously hard to reach demographic.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/248769/age-distribution-of-worldwide-instagram-users/

• 1/3 of US mobile users are on Instagram.
• 25% of US mobile male users are on the platform. 
• 40% of US mobile female users are on it. Note that worldwide slightly more men than women are on the platform,
• Their usage is formidable:
• 22% of users log in to Instagram at least once each day.
• 38% check their account multiple times each day.
• 63% of US teenagers use Instagram daily.
• 34% of US Millennials use the platform daily.
• 72% of users have purchased a product they saw on Instagram.

Instagram is a Proven Business Platform 

 

As users have flocked to Instagram, brands have followed them there. The platform works equally well for global brands and small local businesses. And it does work. According to Hootsuite's aggregation of stats:

• 16.71% of businesses use Instagram; there are 17.25 million business profiles on the platform.
• It has 18.2 million monthly advertisers.
• 19.8% of users follow at least one business.
• 60% of users discover products there.
• 75% of users take some kind of action like visiting a product's website.
• In a single month 1/3 of Instagram users purchased a product using a mobile device making them 70% more likely to purchase from a mobile device than non-users.
• Instagram has a 2.2% interaction rate, higher than competing platforms.
• In a single month in 2017 50% of Instagram business accounts produced at least one Story.

What Are Instagram Stories?

If Instagram is a marketing powerhouse Instagram Stories is the feature that is propelling its current growth. Instagram Stories is a feature that allows users to post photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours. Snapchat was the first to introduce Stories in 2013 and now Facebook offers the feature also. Instagram quickly outstripped the popularity of both Facebook and Snapchat stories among the key young adult demographics.

Once the Stories feature has been activated on the app, all the content posted during a 24-hour period is shown in chronological order. Content from the user's camera roll can be included. The story appears on a bar at the top of the creator's page. Stories can be shared with other users but there are no likes or comments. Stories also offers a number of engagement features--stickers, locations, hashtags and polls appear to be the most popular. In order to access these features the user must convert to a business profile. If you are converting a personal profile to a business profile, you may need to change some of your settings to activate all the new features. Once you have Stories operational, you can create your first Story.

Because of the ephemeral nature of Stories, sharing options are limited.  Instagram posts can be shared to a user's Story by using the paper plane icon. Stories can be reposted by accounts but only if they are tagged in another account's Stories. Reposting is useful for brands that use influencer marketing because they can include the influencer's post in their own highlights.

HubSpot lists other useful business features:

• Business that have over 10,000 followers can add links to their Stories, thereby driving viewers to their websites.
• The Highlights feature allows businesses to add a set of clips to their profile. Highlights do not disappear after 24 hours; they remain visible underneath the profile picture until the brand deletes them.

•  Instagram Stickers can be customized to increase engagement and add a call to action. See examples here.

 

 

 

How Brands Use Instagram Stories

Brands use Instagram Stories to promote their products and services in many ways, as shown in this chart from marketing services firm Launch. Their report says that Instagram is the best platform for creating viewer engagement and that brands value engagement even more than they do product awareness. Makes sense--engagement has a good chance of leading to viewer action.

Brandwatch posted an infographic with compelling reasons to use Stories and links to 30 interesting case histories. Unfortunately it's just too long to post, but here's the link. Some of their statistics are already outdated. I've been careful to use the most recent ones I could find for this post. Here are some capsules of brands who are using Stories well.

Selena Gomez. Not a brand, you say? To my mind anyone who has 144 million followers on Instagram is a brand, whether she intended it or not. And I assume this former girlfriend of Justin Bieber did intend it. I've read the Vanity Fair article on how she became the top Instagram celebrity and I still don't understand it. But that's ok because I'm not part of her target audience. She does Stories, of course; this is simply her profile picture.

Nike. Always a powerhouse in digital, there are literally dozens of  Nike Instagram accounts. Some are corporate accounts, some are retailer accounts and some may even be individual fans. This is from #Nike, which features user-generated content. I captured this shot from the Black Friday story because it has an interactive feature, a question sticker, I think. It turns out to be a post from Turkey's largest retailer of sportswear. What fun!
[accessed November 23, 2018]







Monterrey Bay Aquarium. National Geographic is far and away the leader in this space with 94.3 million Instagram followers as I write this. It has been an internet and social media giant from the beginning with its captivating photos. The Monterrey Bay Aquarium, with 'only' 253 thousand followers, shows much smaller non-profit using Stories well. Any account that can host a #SeaSlugDay has my vote. It also has my vote for having an Instagram account just for teens to post their own content for other teens. That's a great fit with their mission "to inspire conservation of the ocean" and their program "to inspire the next wave of ocean leaders" by focusing on education and development programs for children, teens and teachers.
[accessed November 23, 2018]

 Mailchimp.  When you search the best B2B Instagram marketers email marketing firm Mailchimp invariably shows up. These three screens from their Small Business Saturday Story gives a good idea of why. Interactive features promote engagement and the answer, of course, is a promo for Mailchimp's services. They have 87.7 thousand followers, which is not too shabby for a marketing services firm unknown outside the email industry. They have one service that is especially relevant--the ability to create an Instagram (also Facebook) ad directly from their platform. The process is explained thoroughly without the viewer having to create a Mailchimp account. The third resource page Create Instagram Ads in Mailchimp has a 2-minute video that would work well in the classroom. Wow!
[accessed November 24, 2018]

This is more than enough to give you the idea! A word of warning, however. It's difficult to do justice to ephemeral content in a static context. Instagram Stories beg to be shown in class. You can find good sources in the Brandwatch infographic post or a more recent article in Forbes. You can also ask your students to suggest a story. Having had some embarrassing experiences with that--both intentional and unintentional, I think--I always suggest that you have a backup ready. Or do both. Your students will give you some entertaining examples; you can add the digital strategy aspects. However you choose to present Instagram Stories, I think both you and your students will enjoy it!

Related Updates
How not to do Instagram video--Dolce&Gabbana

Three Things You Really Need to Know to Teach Paid Search in Fall 2018

This blog post outlines changes to the paid search environment and to the Google Online Marketing Challenge in teaching marketing using Internet Marketing:  Integrating Online and Offline Strategies in a Digital Environment.  This material supplements the information on paid search with Google in Chapter 11 and the Appendix on the Google Online Marketing Challenge.

 

Farewell AdWords, Hello Ads

Google made a number of changes over the summer to its ad formats and is rebranding AdWords to Google Ads. Most of the functions are still in beta and some of the online material has yet to be updated to reflect the rebranding.  The new formats and changes take advantage of machine learning and automation and are outlined in an excellent blog post from Search Engine Land. Google wants to focus less on finding keywords and text ads and more on encouraging advertisers to use different ad formats and let automation do much of the work. Certainly, paid advertising is one of the first places where artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation will have the biggest impact.

The announced changes will allow advertisers to automatically run ad campaigns based on the latest responses from consumers, which is a good thing.  We also see a potential danger in more automation in terms of monitoring budgets. We wonder if only the largest advertisers will be able to use these changes or if they will truly benefit small businesses, as Google claims.  The following list is a summary of the changes announced this past summer.

a. Responsive ad types:  These ads can run in rotation and take the place of manual A/B testing.  Automation will try to match the ad closest to the user’s query and the ad formats allow for more characters.  The responsive search ads allow for three headlines and up to two 90-character descriptions vs. 80 characters, so the format allows students more leeway in writing ads.  For simplicity for teaching purposes, it might be better to start out with plain text ads and branch out after students master that format.

b. Local campaigns: This result is a new ad type targeted for retailers and aimed at increasing store visits.  This local campaign is similar to Smart Campaigns, which is the new default for new advertisers. So if you are running a Google Ads project in class and want the students to be able to select their own keywords and make manual changes to track the results, they have to switch platforms to do so.

c. Smart Shopping:  In a similar way, Shopping campaigns can now be automated and structured to achieve the advertiser’s conversation goals, now including store visits or new customers as well as revenue or return on ad spend (ROAS).

d. You Tu be Ads:  With continued growth in conversions, advertisers will continue to look to YouTube for ad conversions and there will be an automated bidding strategy for YouTube, Maximize Lift to target users most likely to consider a brand purchase after viewing a video ad.
e. Hotel Ads: These will be integrated in to the Google Ads platform and also be able to take advantage of automated campaign features.

f. Google Analytics:  It looks like there will be more integration with Google Analytics allowing for cross-device reporting and the ability to build cross-device remarketing audiences for use in Google Ads.  This type of sophistication is not typically taught in the introductory internet/digital marketing courses but the topic might come up in conversation.

 

 

 

Find Google Ads certification on Academy for Ads

Google replaced the Google Partners site with the Academy for Ads early in 2018.  It is still possible to become a Google Partner but not necessary to do so to get certified in Google Ads.  The Academy for Ads allows individuals to get certified for free. Previously, students were signing up as Partners to get free certification.  This is a welcome change to the process and an acknowledgement that more professors are teaching paid search in their programs.

 

 

 

 

A New Form of the Google Online Marketing Challenge

Find the new form of the Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC) as the Google Ad Grants Online Marketing Challenge or OMC:   Students will register and request a nonprofit partner and be matched with one by Google.  The budget is up to $10,000 a month. It will be interesting to see how this form of the challenge progresses.  There are always issues working with a real life company in terms of communication and student teams sometimes

have issues as well in terms of organization and commitment.   However, not having to find a partner is a big bonus for instructors.  We agree with the program’s insisting on the Google Fundamentals exam before beginning the challenge as that basic knowledge really helps in terms of project execution. There is a program similar to the old GOMC for Bing advertisements but none of the students in Dr. Zahay’s class last Spring wanted to use Bing ads.   They know Google is the source of most search traffic.

 

A couple of other notes for teaching this material

Project structure and coaching tips for the student teams and professors found  in the text in the Appendix and instructor Power Points can be applied to any paid search project. It is possible to replicate the old GOMC by getting companies to sponsor student teams.  We found that having the companies buy $250 prepaid Visa cards worked great and relieved client worries about going over budget.  Also, if as an instructor you find a company with multiple product lines to promote via paid search, client communication is easier than working with multiple clients.

In summary, there are a number of changes in the Google Ad world and the online marketing challenge, but the material in the text robust enough to rise to the challenge.  We recommend using the Search Engine Land or similar blog post to update the class on ad formats.  Also, consider the new Academy for Ads for certification and the new form of the Online Marketing Challenge.

Debra Zahay, September, 2018

New Ad Formats

The Expanded Text Format 

Why Marketers Should Add Snapchat to the Digital Communications Mix

Recently Snapchat announced a new developer platform called Snap Kit. Why is this a big deal?

Primarily it’s a big deal because so many teenagers use Snapchat and consider it their favorite platform. Statista quotes 2018 data showing that 72% of female teens and 67% of male teens use the platform. 77% of black teens use Snapchat, followed by 72% of white teens and 64% of Hispanic teens. The chart shows Shapchat as the favorite platform among teens, pretty much leveling off after quarters of meteoric growth. Instagram is second with Twitter and Facebook falling further behind in third and fourth place, respectively. In spite of its second place finish marketers shouldn’t write off Instagram for reaching teens. According to Piper Jaffray’s annual survey teens consider Instagram the best channel for reaching them with new products and promotions.

What, Really, Is Snapchat?

Let’s back off for a minute and--for those of us who long ago left the 18-24 demographic-- understand the Snapchat platform and why using it has been problematic for marketers. The essence of Shapchat is that messages go away after a few seconds—the time determined by user settings. The message stays in the recipient’s inbox until opened, then disappears in the allotted time. The user can send a photo, video or text message to a friends list or only to selected people from it. The platform also offers Stories, a collection of snaps and videos that lasts for 24 hours. Videos are easily filmed and shared. The minimum age for Snapchat users is 13.

Here’s what some teens themselves say about Snapchat:

"Snapchat is probably my single most favorite social media platform," . . ."It combines texting, FaceTiming, and the photographic charm of Instagram."

"I consider it digital honesty, which is hard to find in a web of fake profiles and manipulated photos,"

"I spend a lot of time looking at the 'stories' from CNN and Buzzfeed," . . ."It's the best way to easily ingest quick news or pass the time with quizzes and such."

Quoting a study from research firm Goodwater, the Los Angeles Times also pointed out that teens mostly followed the stories of their friends, not those of celebrities. Users under 30 are most likely to use the Stories function but they are not likely to use expensive apps like Spectacles. Likewise, they are not enthusiastic about additional functions like search and long-form videos. "Simpler is better," . . . "Snapchat would lose its uniqueness if it started
implementing features that were already in use," according to one of the teens.

This is evidence of a deeper, and extremely important trend. News site Axios summarizes the trend:

The concept of speaking to your entire friend network at once via social networks helped propel the popularity of sites like Facebook. Now the pendulum is swinging away from speaking to hundreds of people at once, back toward one-to-one communication that people feel is more private, secure and authentic.

Marketers need to consider the implications of that trend.

Why is Snapchat so Great?

Snapchat has provided one solution to more authentic content for many young people.  Tech executive and writer Ian Kar, who’s had a Snapchat account since 2013, lists key points about the platform:
•    It’s about creating content, not just consuming it
•    It works with vertical videos
•    It’s private
•    It’s relevant, authentic and unfiltered
•    It’s fun!

Why Marketers Need Snapchat

Clearly marketers need Snapchat if they want to reach teens on social media. But other demographics use the platform also. In fact, according to eMarketer, growth is being driven by users aged 45 and up. They are not joining for disappearing messages, they are joining for content, especially streaming short TV episodes. Growth among teen users has slowed as many of them find Instagram stories better suited to their needs.

https://www.emarketer.com/content/facebook-losing-younger-users-at-even-faster-pace

In this context, it is worth noting that Facebook use continues to decline among young users. eMarketer also expects Facebook to loose 2 million users aged 24 and under in 2018. It expects the number of users 12 to 17 to decline 5.6%  and 18 to 24 by 5.8% this year. Reports suggest that some young people are turning to Instagram as a substitute for Snapchat, while others may be turning to messaging apps. Each of those is a story for another day.

Today’s story is why marketers should consider using Snapchat. Here are some reasons:
•    Reach the younger audience (of course)
•    Test ephemeral content
•    Take advantage of the high engagement rate and the platform’s reputation for user privacy
•    Make use of vertical video using the Snap Spectacles video app
•    New opportunity for location-based marketing using the Snap Map
•    Use the Snapchat advertising platform including the Audience Match function which allows brands to use their own customer data
•    Reach the majority of Snapchat users who shop online.

Some Snapchat Campaigns

With those opportunities dangling in front of them, some marketers have experimented with Snapchat campaigns. Note that I had to travel through time and geography to find these. Reason? Few marketers are yet using Snapchat in 2018. Statista puts the number at 8%; for comparison, 94% of marketers use Facebook. There is a difference in whether the campaign is a one-shot (Taco Bell) or ongoing for a period of time (McDonalds).

The 2016 Taco Bell Cinco de Mayo campaign thrust Snapchat into the marketing world when it garnered 224 million views in a single day. It was expensive, using a Snapchat lens (an animated geofilter) to convert the user into a taco. This campaign was featured in the SMM text in the Mobile Marketing chapter because we thought it wasn’t large enough at that time for detailed coverage in the platforms chapters.











In 2014 the Danish branch of the World Wildlife Fund created The Last Selfie campaign to spotlight endangered species. The message of the video was that their existence was as ephemeral as a snapchat post. The WWF extended the campaign into a second week, stating that it achieved more attention than they expected and was a fundraising success.

The elections in the UK in 2017 inspired the Electoral Commission to create a Find your voice voter registration drive that was available throughout the UK. The filter offered several images for the user’s image and a reminder of the number of days until the election at the bottom. It partnered with Snapchat in the week-long get out the vote campaign,

To the present day, this time in New Zealand. McDonalds has run numerous small scale (or perhaps a better term would be location-specific) campaigns over the past few years including one to recruit new employees. In the current campaign a person can activate the McDonald’s geofilter when she is in a store and create a snap to share.
 

How Marketers Can Learn to Use Snapchat

A good short explanation of marketer uses of Snapchat makes the point that it updates so often it is useless to give detailed instructions on how to use it. Point well taken, but there are a number of generic ways to reap benefits from the app. This list is divided by organic growth and advertising.

Marketers can drive organic growth on Snapchat in a number of ways:
•    Use a Snapchat Story to create awareness of your brand. For instance, conduct a quick,  fun-filled walkthrough of your business operations
•    Post some behind the scenes content from your workplaces or about your products
•    Be responsive to every message. Thank your viewers. Give them a shout out in your snaps. Share something they’ve snapped.
•    Post regularly, at least once a day.
•    Above all, be consistent with your brand’s voice and mission.
Once the marketer has become comfortable using Shapchat, she may want to make use of Sapchat ads. Some examples include:
•    Use Snap Ads to leverage audio visual content for marketing your brand.
      o    Use Context Cards to add additional information like product availability locations
•    Sponsor a lens; identify how a user would engage with your product, and apply the insights to a lens (for instance, a lens that lets users ‘drink’ your energy drink)
•    Use themed geofilters like the in-store McDonalds filters.

There’s an important reason for separating organic growth from advertising on Snapchat. Brands can create their own filters and lenses and can learn a lot by doing that. Snapchat advertising gets expensive pretty quickly. The Taco Bell Cinco de Mayo lens was rumored to cost about $750,000—for one day! The New Zealand McDonalds chain filter is going to be expensive because it’s going to be available for a year and will be changed to reflect other promotional activity. I couldn’t find a cost for The Last Selfie campaign, but you can see the basic costs for sponsored lenses in the chart below. It’s not clear whether the WWF got a price break because it’s a non-profit, but it is clear that Snapchat supported the Find your voice campaign for the UK Election Commission. Otherwise, a spokesman notes that the nation-wide filter would have been “quite pricey.”

It’s always wise to check, but these are recent estimates of ad costs, some verified by several sources, others from one good summary:

Snap Ads. This is a DIY ad format using Snapchat’s Ad Manager. Not surprisingly, it works uch like Facebook ads.
Sponsored Lenses. The quoted price varies by day with weekdays being $450,000, $500,000 for Fridays and Saturdays and $700,000+ for holidays and special events.
Nationwide Sponsored Geofilters. This is a new product but estimates suggest about $100,000.
Discover. These are essentially banner ads that appear at the top of the screen and cost about $50,000 per day.
Snap to Unlock. This is also a new ad format in which a link in another site or channel unlocks a Snap filter.
Snap to Unlock Codes. This is another new ad format which looks like Snapchat’s version of a QR code. It is estimated to have a price just higher than local geofilters.
Sponsored Local Geofilters. The cost for a local geofilter can be as low as $5, per day apparently. One source quotes the cost for an annual contract for a local geofilter at “a few hundred dollars.”

These are basics and some are estimates. Snapchat’s rates are based on CPM but it also offers goal-based bidding, which is a pay-per-action format. If viewers interact with the ad, they become members of a Snap Engagement Group that can be retargeted.


Why is the New App Policy So Important?

The preceding section makes it clear that Snapchat ads are pricey. What may also be obvious is that the platform has kept a tight rein on its advertising options. The new Snap Kits for developers cracks that door open a bit, and that’s why it’s important.

Even so, the opening is limited. The new products allow developers to include Snapchat features like Bitmojis and stickers in their own apps, embed Stories as content on other sites and sign in with their Snapchat identification. The platform says it will share only display names and Bitmoji avatars with developers—no demographic data or friends lists. For the present, all applications will receive human scrutiny prior to approval, which one assumes includes a careful look at adherence to privacy standards.

CEO and co-founder of Snapchat Evan Spiegel likes to goad Facebook about Snapchat’s stronger privacy protection and the fact that it hasn’t been susceptible to Russian interference. He often suggests that Facebook should copy Snapchat privacy standards. Speaking about the developer kits, a member of the legal staff says:

"Under no circumstance do we allow anyone to ask for your friends list or contacts directly," says Katherine Tassi, Snap's deputy general counsel. "[Mobile] platforms do give developers the ability to ask for contacts, but that will be on their own." Tassi added that third-party developers also won't be able to see people's messaging activity—though there is anonymized, aggregated usage data shared between Snap and the developer. 

This is still the age of Snapchat experimentation. Brands that have teens or the broader 18-24 demographic in their target market should be experimenting now. As with any platform, there will be a learning curve. Now is the time to jump on!

See the infographic here

Related Updates
Using vertical (portrait) video is a Snapchat strong point 
Why Snapchat user growth has slowed