Instagram has recently announced that advertising will begin showing up within the next year. The details are still on the light side, meaning Instagram has yet to announce any specifics. Or for that matter a date of when these advertisements will begin showing in your feeds. But that being said, Ms. White, director of business operations at Instagram has said they should be ready to begin selling ads within the next year.
This is something that many have likely been expecting, but it seems there may not be a big rush to make this all happen. In fact, further details coming from The Wall Street Journal bring comments from Ms. White about how, they “want to make money in the long term” but that the “don’t have any short-term pressure.” We can only hope that will translate into Instagram taking their time and doing these right for the end users.
Speaking of users, Instagram has said they now have more than 150 million active monthly users. As to what this means in terms of Facebook — Instagram picked up about 128 million users since Facebook bought them last year. And as comparison, back in March, Twitter had said they had “well over” 200 million active monthly users.
Further details on the advertising plans brings talk of how Instagram now has two people working on analytics and four people helping to manage relationships with brands. It was said that Ms. White has cataloged all of the major brand-marketer accounts on Instagram in this process and as a result — has had her going out to meet with these companies.
Nothing has been announced in terms of advertisers just yet, but the WSJ article does mention how Ms. White recently had meetings with several companies to include Coca-Cola Co., Williams-Sonoma Inc., and Ford Motor Co. But in the end, while Instagram now has 150 million users, perhaps the bigger issue here is how to bring in the ads without pushing any of those users out.
