close
INDIAN (T)

Instagram pips parent Facebook in some ways, but will the data breach scandal affect it?

no thumb


Young urban Indians, too, have gradually migrated to the photo-sharing platform, branding it far cooler than FB.
Young urban Indians, too, have gradually migrated to the photo-sharing platform, branding it far cooler than FB.

Facebook’s loss has been Instagram’s gain. Until two weeks ago, the buzz around the photo and video-sharing website was that despite being the smallest subsidiary of the world’s largest social media network, Instagram was slowly eating into the market share of parent Facebook.

Instagram’s percentage contribution to Facebook’s global mobile ad revenue almost doubled from 4.8% to 8.4% between 2015 and 2016. Market researcher eMarketer projects this figure to go up to 18% by the end of this year.

The app, founded by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in 2010, was acquired by Facebook just two years later for $1 billion in cash and stock. At an estimated valuation of over $100 billion now, Instagram had a monthly user growth rate of 167% between January ’15 and January ’18 – the highest among all Facebook (FB) companies, including WhatsApp and Messenger.

Instagram pips parent Facebook in some ways, but will the data breach scandal affect it?

Instagram’s reach in India is only about a fifth of that of FB. However, in some categories and for some age-groups (like the 18- to 30-year-olds), Instagram can offer two-five times higher user-engagement and an equal if not better conversion rate for advertisers, publishers and small businesses.

Though Facebook is ahead in numbers, the comparative cost-benefit ratio works in favour of Instagram. “For the same number of followers (over 100k) and the same budget across the two platforms, we receive 10 times more inquiries on Instagram than FB,” says Saurabh Sharma, co-founder of Alicia Souza’s Studio that sells merchandise with the signature artwork of the eponymous illustrator.

Instagram pips parent Facebook in some ways, but will the data breach scandal affect it?

Young urban Indians, too, have gradually migrated to the photo-sharing platform, branding it far cooler than FB. But the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal, which cost FB $30 billion in stock value, raises questions on the credibility of its subsidiaries, like Instagram, as well. Take the case of Bengaluru’s Amith C, 35, and Rimi Verma, 30, (name changed). They deactivated their FB accounts a few months ago.

Their Facebook timeline had become a place for attention-seekers, and they wanted out. Instagram wasn’t a part of their social media detox plan. “I stayed on Insta because I didn’t have to see what other people had liked or commented on, which FB kept throwing at me against my wishes,” says Rimi Verma. The data breach has made them wary of Instagram, too.

Instagram pips parent Facebook in some ways, but will the data breach scandal affect it?

But advertisers like Quikr have allocated a part of their ad spend exclusively for Instagram. This was done for categories like automobiles that can leverage the platform’s visual interface. They discovered that the cost per customer acquisition was lower on Instagram than on Facebook.

“Marketers will take a hard look at everything now because privacy is a big thing,” says Vineet Sehgal, chief marketing officer of the online classified start-up, in the aftermath of the fallout that triggered a hashtag #deletefacebook on Twitter last week. “If they make any changes, it will be for both Facebook and Instagram.”

This shift in the focus of small businesses has become more pronounced now, especially after FB founder Mark Zuckerberg announced a major algorithm tweak in January.

In the wake of allegations surrounding the platform’s role in spreading fake news that influenced political events like Brexit and the US elections, Zuckerberg said users would see “less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media” and more posts from their friends and family. India got its own version of this memo — in the form of a series of song-and-dance sequences, with Facebook’s first big nationwide campaign for the country called ‘Live What You Love’.

Instagram pips parent Facebook in some ways, but will the data breach scandal affect it?

The tweak in algorithm irked online publishers across the world. Last month, Business Insider reported that a women-focused US-based online publisher called Little Things shut shop due to the disruption.

Closer home, Anuj Gosalia, co-founder and CEO of Terribly Tiny Tales (a storytelling platform with a readership of 12 million), found the company’s FB page taking a serious hit in engagement numbers, while its Instagram engagement soared organically. “Instagram has become our key focus platform now. Currently, a significant part of our revenue comes from Facebook. Two years from now, we don’t want to depend on it for revenue. We want to use it for brand-building alone.”

Even Instagram has its share of problems. Small businesses and publishers have been complaining of being affected by Instagram’s #shadowban, which came into effect early 2017 making some hashtags undiscoverable. This was because of a change in the algorithm to keep controversial content out. Facebook had to tweak its algorithm to address the issue of fake news and hate-mongering spreading through its platforms, even if it was at the cost of antagonising publishers and small businesses.

Little did it know that a three-year-old user data manipulation scandal was going to hit it hard and bring it under the glare of regulators in the UK and US. The Indian government has also said Zuckerberg could be summoned if any wrongdoing was found. All these threaten to undo the damage control attempt with the algorithm tweak.

Instagram pips parent Facebook in some ways, but will the data breach scandal affect it?

The data breach will impact the parent company and all its subsidiaries, says Prashanth Challapalli, chief integration officer-South Asia for ad agency Leo Burnett. “The exploitative nature of some of these platforms has turned social media into ‘soshan’ media now.” However, the man on the street in India cares very little about the scandal, says Ajay Kakar, CMO of Aditya Birla Capital. “I think very few users will abstain from FB, though marketers will wait and watch for a while.”

For some users, though, Instagram might trump its parent company. “I use Instagram freely because it asks for very little personal information and, therefore, seems like a far more secure platform. They are very upfront about being a dedicated photo-sharing site and not sneaky like FB,” says Shrey Goyal, a 29-year-old social entrepreneur from Delhi.

Instagram’s limitations have helped it become a better platform over the years, says Leo Burnett’s Challapalli. The sharing is limited to tagging users in comments or using third-party apps. The only place where links can be clicked is in the user’s bio, which ensures users are staying on the platform a lot longer.

Instagram pips parent Facebook in some ways, but will the data breach scandal affect it?

Publishers don’t have an inbuilt ‘share’ option, narrowing chances of fake news and trolls and making it a less toxic platform than Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. Besides, posts with images get twice as much engagement as regular ones. In the last one week, FB has had to revoke many of its liberal data-sharing policies in order to avoid a similar fallout in the future; indicating that limited offerings from a platform can actually be a good thing.

Will Instagram’s limitations be seen as its strength then, given the current situation? Can it help salvage the reputation of its parent company, Facebook? Instagram did not respond to questions sent by ET Magazine. But Aditya Birla’s Kakar says it’s too early to say anything definitely. “I can’t say for FB that the king is dead, long live the king. And Instagram seems to have taken off in a big way but people keep discovering new platforms. It’s not the king yet,” he concludes.



Source link

The author

Leave a Response