Why is Instagram so popular?
Everyone knows the social media platform Instagram and many people still use Instagram very actively in their everyday lives. In contrast to platforms like Snapchat, Instagram is still very popular even after over 10 years. But why is Instagram so popular?
The idea behind Instagram is pretty simple: You can share photos and pictures including hashtags and captions on your profile and at the same time see, like and comment on what others post in your own network. Essentially, it’s about what Facebook made possible in the early days of social media: exchanging ideas with friends and sharing pictures and personal experiences.
This “USP” is important because social media is primarily about exchanging ideas and seeing what others are doing in their lives. But why did Instagram take over this field from Facebook at this time?
Facebook & Instagram-How the two Platforms Have Developed over the years
If you think back 10 years, you will remember that Facebook was the clear number 1 in social media at the time. There you networked with new acquaintances and shared pictures and thoughts from your own life with your network.
However, in 2005, Instagram hit the market and began to attack Facebook’s supremacy. From the very beginning, Instagram aimed at a very visual social media experience and thus distinguished itself from Facebook, where long text posts, surveys and other formats are also possible.
People seemed to like this because for many the most important aspect of social media is still sharing photos and videos – and Instagram makes this possible in a perfect way. More and more people, therefore, began to post their pictures and videos on Instagram in addition to Facebook.
The result was an impressive network effect:
More and more users jumped off Facebook, either in whole or in part, and used Instagram to exchange ideas with their own network.
Because Facebook was increasingly relying on companies, groups, and other features at the same time, this process accelerated and Instagram gained even faster popularity – while at the same time more and more “normal” users dropped out of Facebook, but companies, brands and organizations gained the upper hand.
In April 2012 the time had come and Facebook reacted to the threatening development by unceremoniously bought Instagram for one billion US dollars. From now on, Facebook was able to operate both platforms in parallel and build on their respective strengths: visual sharing of photos and videos on Instagram and more networking and group features on Facebook.
Because Facebook owns several social media platforms, it is now much easier to share your posts on several platforms at the same time. This is also the main reason why both Instagram and Facebook still have high user numbers.
Where does Instagram stand today?
While Instagram had just 1 million registered users in 2010, this number has risen to over 1 billion today. More than 40,000 images and photos are uploaded to Instagram every minute – there are even more than 60 million posts per day. One thing is clear: Instagram is still one of the most popular social media platforms. The interactivity rate of Instagram is much higher than that of other platforms such as Facebook or Twitter.
A development that Instagram copied from Facebook led to significantly more posts being published on Instagram: the entry of companies and brands into the advertising business on Instagram. Millions of brands worldwide have recognized that Instagram is the perfect ad space – especially because of the strong visual side of the platform.
The “money machine” Instagram
The reason why there are so many influencers who make money with Instagram is due to the rapid increase in advertising brands and companies that have recognized the platform’s potential for their marketing. Whereas in the past only “innocent” photos and videos of normal users could be found on Instagram, the management of Facebook made it possible that from one day to the other brands and companies could use Instagram for advertising purposes.
It is clear what the tremendous potential there is for companies to be able to “squeeze” their advertisements between the photos and videos of friends and acquaintances. So Instagram was the perfect advertising machinery. According to reports from Bloomberg, Instagram generated over $ 20 billion in advertising revenue in 2019 alone.
The advertisements inserted between personal contributions act as a visual shop window. As a user, you can click on a post marked as an advertisement, which takes you directly to the product page of a brand. The increasing use of machine learning is also particularly ingenious, as it enables Instagram to display personalized ads for each user.
Since 2016 it has also been possible to set up a so-called “business account” with which Instagram can be used commercially. This function allows you to place advertisements yourself and has access to detailed statistics that enable business use of Instagram.
Thanks to the Instagram stories, journalists, bloggers and news portals can also increasingly use the platform to post linkable articles or product tests and thus generate traffic that can then be valued. So there are different ways that companies make money on Instagram.
Conclusion: can you make good money with Instagram?
We saw that Instagram is still one of the most widely used social media platforms in the world. So many models and influencers are making a nice amount of money and adding it to their net worths. At the same time, brands and companies are increasingly using Instagram for marketing and advertising.
The mix of these two factors ensures that Instagram still offers many opportunities to make money on the platform. So you can use a large follower base to negotiate lucrative advertising deals or to advertise your own products.
As great as the potential of Instagram is: You have to consider that the competition has grown so much in the last few years and it is by no means a sure-fire success to be able to make money on Instagram.
Not only do you need strong skills in photography, editing and marketing, you also have to adapt quickly to new technical developments or new features on the platform. If you have enough staying power and strong visual skills, Instagram is certainly a suitable platform for building a business.
However, if you are looking for a quick way to earn money on the Internet, you will certainly not find what you are looking for with Instagram. In order to earn money online quickly and easily, you can try product tests such as those found on the Testerheld website. Here you don’t have to invest months or years of unpaid work in building an Instagram profile, but get paid immediately for testing products.
