 "Instagram’s tweak may be the beginning of a multibillion-dollar industry")
Last month, Instagram – the image-based social network with more than 300 million users – made a change that barely received notice outside the tech world. It officially switched on its API, or application programming interface, for ads.
The reaction, or lack thereof, was predictable. APIs aren’t generally the stuff of front-page news. On a technical level, the change means that ads can now be posted on Instagram by just about anyone using online tools that plug directly into the network. On a practical level, it means that the Internet’s newest advertising behemoth is officially open for business.
Thanks in part to the new API, Instagram’s current mobile ad revenues of $595 million a year are expected to rocket to $2.8 billion by 2017 – leaving even giants like Twitter and Google in the rearview mirror in the US market.
Thanks in part to the new API, Instagram’s current mobile ad revenues of $595 million a year are expected to rocket to $2.8 billion by 2017 – leaving even giants like Twitter and Google in the rearview mirror in the US market.
For marketers, Instagram has long been a coveted target. The network is believed to have passed Twitter and LinkedIn in terms of active users and to now be second in size only to Facebook (its parent company) among US-based social platforms. Moreover, while growth at Twitter and Facebook is largely plateauing, Instagram expanded at an incredible 50-percent clip in 2014. And its users are considerably younger than those on other major networks: a full 44% of people on Instagram are 18-29, versus just 23% on Facebook and 33 percent on Twitter.
