Andrew Waber says, “My work involves looking into larger trends we (at Nanigans) observe across our base of hundreds of large advertisers, primarily within the Facebook ecosystem. What’s particularly interesting about Instagram as a newer platform is that the architecture of the ad environment is similar to Facebook’s, and we’ve observed remarkably comparable performance across the two channels. Yet, as creative best practices continue to emerge for Instagram ads, some differences do present themselves. As a quick refresher, this past summer, roughly three years after its 2012 acquisition... [...]

Mike Templeman says, “Content marketing has evolved from a buzzword into a major component of marketing strategies for companies of all sizes. Thirty-seven percent of business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers have a documented content marketing strategy, and 61 percent of the most-effective business-to-business (B2B) marketers meet daily or weekly with their content marketing team. Content marketing can produce amazing results when done correctly, and with 2016 right around the corner, it’s the perfect time to make sure your strategy is mapped out. While you plan and adjust, consider these... [...]

Verónica Maria Jarski says, “Here’s a look at the biggest products and visual trends on Instagram this holiday season—and what you can learn from them. “Of every Instagram we analyzed, here’s what’s driving action,” states Curalate in the following infographic. Light images (77%), indoor images (63%), and people (59%) rule Instagram compared to dark images (20%) outdoor images (26%), and 38% (no people). In home decor and improvement, however, users prefer to not see people. “Almost every image (94%) excludes people,” states Curalate. In the publishing... [...]

Karissa Bell says, “nstagram may finally be adding support for multiple accounts. The photo sharing app is testing support for multiple accounts for Android users. The feature appears to be limited to some Android users who are part of Instagram’s beta testing program, at least for now. First spotted by Twitter users @fro_rogue — who reports the test has been live for some time — the feature allows users to add multiple accounts from the app’s main settings menu. Once added, you can browse and post from different feeds within the app”. Instagram is testing support for... [...]

Martin Beck says, “Last minute shopping for holiday customers? There’s still time on Facebook and Instagram. The social network is rolling out a new ad-targeting segment to enable brands to zero in on people who are highly engaged with content related to holiday shopping, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The segment, which will run from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day, can be used on any ad format on either network. Facebook will pull together the audience by sniffing out holiday-related keywords in posts that people publish and posts they like, comment on and share. Like... [...]

Martin Beck says, “Instagram continues to mature as a marketing tool. Today, the Facebook-owned social network introduced the Instagram Partner Program to help advertisers and businesses use Instagram to reach consumers. It’s a natural next step for a company that several months ago opened its advertising platform to all advertisers. Previously, Instagram had held the ad keys closely to make sure that paid promotional messages didn’t diminish Instagram users’ experiences. Now, after opening the flood gates, Instagram is doing what parent company Facebookand other digital platforms... [...]

Martin Beck says, “Like Snapchat and Twitter, Instagram is getting into the content curation game. On Saturday, Facebook’s visually oriented social network introduced a new way for people to follow major events, kicking off the effort on Halloween, the most Instagrammable of holidays. If you opened the Instagram app in the US during the weekend, you were given the opportunity to “Watch Halloween’s Best Videos.” By tapping on the prompt, you were taken to a video-only feed created by Instagram’s community team. Within the feed, videos were displayed full-screen without the usual... [...]

Martin Beck says, “Instagram has announced that it will soon allow advertisers to help themselves to carousel ads. Instagram will enable purchase of the ads through parent company Facebook’s Power Editor and Ad Manager platforms and the Instagram ads API in the next few weeks. “By opening up the way advertisers can buy, businesses of all sizes around the world now have more flexible targeting, call-to-action button options, and can customize their offsite links to help drive maximum return,” Instagram wrote in a blog post. Launched in June, carousel ads offer advertisers the chance... [...]

Ali G has just released his new Social Interest Freak desktop software. Actually, this is version 2, an upgrade from his earlier release. It’s built on Adobe AIR, so whether you use a PC or a Mac, this is for you. It started out as a Facebook tool, but now, in Version 2, Instagram is also supported. Its purpose is to precisely target your marketing campaigns on Facebook and Instagram so every penny you spend brings you a payback. Ali has created a demo video to show you what this new tool with do. You can check it out here:Social Interest Freak Demo. This is up-to-date marketing you won’t... [...]

Jason Parks says, “Instagram’s launch in 2010 was the equivalent to the new popular kid, “Ian,” moving to your high school at the beginning of the year. Girls couldn’t stop commenting about his good looks and guys were thrilled that he’d compete for the starting goalie position in hockey. Even though students had their loyalty to “Tyler,” the starting goaltender from the previous year, there was excitement in the air about Ian, the new kid in town. When Ian led his high school team to the state championship in Buffalo, people didn’t forget about Tyler, they were just very... [...]