
The Future of Instagram Story monetization
One of the main questions buzzing around the release of
Facebook’s 3rd quarter
report this week, is how the platform’s earnings will impact the future growth plans for
Instagram, especially from
a monetization and
advertising point of view.
Facebook’s underwhelming third quarter results:
The financial
statement itself shows a 1.79% increase in Facebook users, which misses the Wall Street increase estimate of 1.5 billion new users. As for
shares, whereas they
rose slightly, overall the platform hasn’t capitalized on revenue and user
growth expectations, and instead experienced lowest growth in its core
North American and
European markets. In fact, the stats show that Facebook lost 1 million European users throughout Q3. Ceo Zuckerberg’s responded that
the goal going forward was to concentrate
on improving user
growth, and pointed out that
already 2 billion individuals use at least one of Facebook’s services daily. The main opportunities
are in private messaging, stories, video and
commerce.
How This Impacts Instagram
Since one of these services includes Instagram, which has championed Snapchat
with its stories and video engagement, investors have been eager to find out about Zuckerberg’s
plans for ways to further monetize the app. Instagram began to incorporate ads into story
streams in 2017, which resulted
in huge double-digit
profit increases for many businesses.
The company has followed the move this year
with the extra introduction
of Facebook ads. However, what the Q3 didn’t include was any info around how much money the Stories product is actually making.
While we do know that
story ads monetize at
a lower rate than regular feed ads, Facebook’s Chief financial officer David Wehner
predicts that the impression growth opportunity on Instagram Stories is significant. Analysts confirm that pricing power will come later on down the line, whereas in the meantime Facebook plans to
develop new tools for advertisers and refine their ad product style, functionality and performance.
Facebook’s Plans For the future
Part of the process will be educating
advertisers themselves the way to best
use the platform, as well as
attracting them to purchasing ads
on the platform in the first place. Facebook additionally faces the added challenge of catching up
with Youtube’s advertising model, which is presently miles ahead of both Facebook Watch and Instagram TV.
Either way, the stories feature has grown hugely since its introduction just last year, and Zuckerberg is confident moving forward that
trends suggest “that within the not too distant
future, individuals will be sharing more into Stories than they will into feeds.”
Is Hate Speech finding refuge on Instagram?
Social media already doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to instances and regulation
of verbal and cyberbullying. Technology has unfortunately made it all too simple for anyone to direct inappropriate comments to other users in a matter of seconds, no matter how distant their location, regardless of their level of acquaintance. Worryingly, hate
speech is currently getting down infiltrating every niche of Instagram’s
wide-ranging search bar results.
Data from The New York Times shows us a shocking tally
of 11,696 examples of hate thriving on
social media, most rampant in hashtag trends like #jewsdid911 and abbreviations promoting Nazi ideology.
And this behavior isn’t just
reserved for incidents like the
recent massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue however occurs on
a daily basis.
Moves are constantly being made in an attempt to prevent or remove this kind of behavior, like banning users
like far-right group Proud Boys who authorities describe as a
“hate group” spreading harmful messages on the platform.
Whereas Instagram does have reporting options enabled, this doesn’t stop the hate from spreading, nor does it stop it from reaching the most vulnerable audiences before it’s too late.
Also, Instagram’s elusive and ever-changing algorithmic rule system doesn’t prevent this harassment from spreading and often allows it. Searches and popular posts are organized according to engagement, despite the content, and hashtag
searches deliver automated results which can further fuel hate speech trends and exacerbate the
real-life damage in an online atmosphere. It’s clear that Instagram needs to drastically reevaluate its interpretation of what “top posts” really means.