The talk this week has been around Instagram Ads: what they are worth, user reactions, what comes next (hint: video). The banter feels a bit forced, given that the reaction has become more-or-less standard for any change made to a social network, especially one that revolves around making money; however, Instagram has made its decision carefully – or at least, it’s selecting advertisers’ photos carefully – and it seems, for now, that the goal is to ease people into the idea by providing beautiful photos.
The advertising opportunity will likely create a much more active business ecosystem around Instagram, which is the #2 most popular App in terms of consumption on mobile (behind Facebook, Instagram’s parent company). The opportunity to influence the young population will be complementary to Facebook’s offer, and there is no doubt that players enabling this market, like Nitrogram with brands, are going to have to act fast.
Nitrogram, of course, has several competitors currently providing analytics for brands – a simple Google search pulls up Statigram, SimplyMeasured,Crowdbabble & more – and the key will be in the quality of the offer. Today, Nitrogram works with brands like McDonalds, MTV, Hermes, Nespresso & Redken, and there’s no doubt that as these players look to move into Instagram Ads in the coming months, that Nitrogram will want to follow them on the value chain, providing not only a platform to manage ads, but to track performance against other photos. The startup already released a blog post dedicated to analyzing the performance of the first Instagram Ad, and there’s no doubt they are in talks with Instagram about getting more integration into the platform.