It’s the most wonderful time of the year…for meaningless marketing predictions. Every December bloggers pour themselves cups of spiked eggnog, and play fortuneteller. They gush over their preferred platforms and make doomsday predictions loosely based on data. I’m as guilty as the next blabbermouth; I posted last week about moving away from Facebook in 2014.
Today I’d like to revisit this topic, although I’m not going to pretend to tell the future. I’m coming to you as a friend and fellow marketer because I don’t want you to repeat the same social media mistakes. By that I mean putting an ounce of trust in Facebook.
Don’t Fall into the Instagram Quicksand
If you’ve been following this blog, it probably seem as though I’m beating a dead horse here. But I’m not referring to Facebook itself; I’m talking about its popular app property, Instagram. In the wake of all the Facebook nonsense, I’ve heard a lot of people suggest IG as an alternative way to reach your fans. That’s about as logical as trying to extinguish a fire with lighter fluid. As I said in this funny social media infographic, there seems to be some form of collective denial going on here. Everyone consciously realizes that Facebook owns Instagram, yet they still view them as separate entities. That’s fine for teenagers who want to escape from their parents, but it makes zero sense from a business standpoint.
The fine folks at Streamfeed created a petition to convince Facebook to change its greedy ways. I wish them the best, although I admit I haven’t signed the petition because I believe it’s a futile effort. Facebook clearly doesn’t care about its users or the brands who contribute to its daily traffic stats. So why should Instagram be any different? Instagram is just another way for Facebook to pad its pockets— they just haven’t figured out how to do it with the least amount of user backlash.
So far they’ve introduced “sponsored” posts (aka ads) to 4 major brands with promising early results. The strong numbers seem positive, until you realize that the brands in question are huge corporations who already had large followings on the platform. Replicating these results probably isn’t realistic for your small business. And since you can’t post links to your website, good luck even getting referral traffic to your blog.
Is Instagram Worth Your Time?
I joined Instagram about 2 weeks ago as a personal user (I own a Windows phone, so the app wasn’t available to me until then. The current product is still in Beta mode). I wanted to see what the hype is about, and figure out if it would be worthwhile to invest in an IG content strategy for PrintFirm. I do see some potential for us and other printers to increase consumer interest in our brands, but that’s about it. We’re in the B2B market, and our main demographic is well over the age of the average IG user.
Perhaps you’re in a different position. Maybe your target market fits the IG base to a tea. Does that mean you should put a lot of effort into your building your presence there? While I would recommend using the channel, this question brings me back to my original point. Facebook already turned their back on your business. They fooled you once, and that’s completely understandable. But if you let them fool you again, I really don’t want to hear any complaints about it. And feel free to hum along to this song…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdOEindANdY