Instagram has a new ad type called “Promote” for Stories. “Promote” allows business pages to show slideshows to more users — sweet!
TechCrunch reported recently that admins can choose to auto-target users similar to their followers, people in a certain location or use all of the platform’s targeting parameters to “inject” their Story into the Story queues of others.
“Inject” – as introduce as an interruption. But they’re ads so I guess it’s par for the course.
Furthermore, as an ad, this injection can also link to businesses’ Insta profiles and/or websites.
Insta explained to TechCrunch that “Promote” works in a manner similar to Facebook’s “Boost” option, which lets business and professional pages pay to show their feed/posts to more users, instantly. TechCrunch confirmed with Insta that the “Promote” feature is being tested globally, but the platform doesn’t have an immediate timeline for rollout.
Because everyone loves Insta, while Facebook’s revenue growth reportedly in a massive decline, “Promote” may also serve to inject some needed fundage into your grandma’s favorite discriminatory social media platform. (No hate: It’s my grandma’s fav too.)
This is all well and good, but unless you’re very careful – and have been very careful thus far – as members of the sex work community, the “Promote” option is probably not available to you. But maybe if you’re tricky?
TechCrunch also shared that Insta is launching a beta of “Instagram Analytics.” Now, this could be very useful as there is not money or promotion involved here.
The new analytics tool goes beyond the platform’s existing “Insights” tool, which just counts different types of engagement – things like new followers, website clicks, post impressions and Story exits.
With “Instagram Analytics,” according to TechCrunch, business accounts can track lifetime value and retention rates for people and create audience segments to see if people who commented on a particular post generate more value. They can also analyze how their Instagram audience overlaps with people who visit their sites, download their apps or like their Facebook page — which sounds all well and good, but also sounds like a recipe for disaster if one is not being very careful with either or both of their platform accounts.
The truth is, being able to see exactly how followers move through a “conversion funnel” (v. fancy!) will result in higher campaign efficacy and confidence. This will, in turn, translate into more ad and content spends – good for Insta – and presumably more conversion for you… But again, only *if* you’re allowed to use the tools for your specific sexy business.
Time will tell.
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Erika is a sex positive people watcher (and writer). Email her at erika@ynotcam.com.
Image via Instagram.
