Category: Social Media Marketing

Instagram will surpass others when it comes to mobile ad revenue

Instagram may overcome both Google and Twitter when it comes to mobile marketing by 2017. According to a new report from eMarketer, the social networking company is expected to generate more than $2.81 billion in global mobile ad revenue by 2017. This is 372% higher than the $595 million that eMarketer had original estimated the company would generate this year. Both Twitter and Google may fall behind Instagram, as the social network finds more success in the mobile marketing space.

Mobile marketing is gaining prominence among retailers and social networks alike

Mobile marketing has become a very important business tool. More consumers are beginning to use their smartphones and other devices to shop for and purchase products, as well as expose themselves to new services that they may be interested in. Mobile ad displays are a powerful way to engage consumers and these ads have found a promising home on social networks, where millions of consumers are exposed to advertisements on a daily basis.

Google and Twitter will fall behind Instagram in mobile ad revenue by 2017

According to eMarketer, Instagram will surpass both Google and Twitter in terms of revenue generated through mobile ad displays. The other two companies currently generate more revenue than Instagram, but that will change by 2017. By that year, Google is estimated to generate $2.38 billion in mobile ad display revenue, whereas Twitter is expected to generate some $2.29 billion. As Instagram becomes more powerful in the mobile marketing space, it will account for a larger share of Facebook’s overall mobile ad revenue.

Action-oriented ads are gaining momentum among businesses that want to engage mobile consumers

The growth of Instagram’s mobile ad revenue may be due to the rising popularity of “action-oriented” advertisements. These ads are designed to encourage specific actions among consumers. In some cases, such ads are accompanied by “buy” buttons, which allow users to make a purchase products that they find on social networking sites. These buy buttons are proving to be an effective tool for retailers when it comes to engaging mobile consumers.

Since the social network split its applications into smaller, specific offerings, some interesting trends have developed.

When it comes to the Facebook mobile app, there are actually quite a few from which to choose, and what is interesting about the download stats is that it is the Messenger application that is proving to be the most popular, even over the main flagship offering from the company.

The two social apps have been available since 2012 and the Messenger offering is notably more popular.

In fact, from 2012 through the first six months of 2015, the Messenger mobile app from Facebook has managed to bring in over 646.6 million downloads throughout that time. This, according to the app analytics from the Sensor Tower firm. Throughout that same span of time, the flagship Facebook social media app was able to achieve an impressive but notably lower 568 million downloads.

Aside from those two Facebook mobile apps, none of the brand’s other applications even come close.

Facebook has a range of different applications available for various purposes, but aside from those top two options, none of the other options are nearly as popular. To put it in perspective, all of the other Facebook apps, combined (aside from the flagship and Messenger options) have accumulated a total of 637.5 million downloads, total. That is about 9 million downloads fewer than Messenger’s total, all on its own.

What should be noted is that a number of the Facebook applications are from the company’s Creative Labs division. The purpose of that team is not necessarily the generation of the largest number of downloads. Instead, it is to use its app offerings to better understand the overall Facebook usage experience so that the primary apps can be enhanced to fit the wants and expectations of the users.

For example, the company learned a great deal its mobile apps such as Paper, so that it would be able to better design its instant articles feature, which makes it possible for news organizations to make social network posts of their articles directly onto Facebook. In the case of Messenger, though, the application has managed to hold the first position at both the Google Play and App Store ranks for quite some time.