Adweek reported in the beginning of this month that Instagram will start rolling out its first ads in the form of promoted posts within members’ feeds. However, the platform is still far from using its full potential of revenues as it still doesn’t allow individual users monetize their own posts.

While bloggers can already easily monetize their posts in their own sites, many are waiting this to be possible also through Instagram. Though Instagram lacks its potential in terms of collecting revenues, it’s hard to tell if the regular users are happy to see the change. Other social media channels such as facebook has transformed hugely in terms of advertising since its earlier years. Many are saying that facebook has become too commercial. Has it? At least the number of users is growing, so it doesn’t seem to have done any harm.

While trying to create content for our project client’s instagram profile, we also came to realize the limitations that Instagram still holds for sales purposes. When posting photos of sellable items, inability to add links to the posts definitely seemed to lose the whole point. Wouldn’t the customers also want an easy access to the product they’d like to buy? What harm would a simple link do?

Since Instagram as a platform has remained quite the same since the beginning, the unwillingness to change the usability of the application must be strategic. Even the poor usability of the application could be easily fixed but maybe it’s been strategic to maintain it as it is and emphasize its hipster-like old-fashion feel.

Either way, I’d say it’s just a matter of time until the platform will give up and allow more advertising into this platform. As it has already become popular platform for companies’ social media strategy, the next step is to allow them to leverage the platform in other ways.

Whether added advertisements will be a discomfort or actually increase the satisfaction of the users is still unknown. Perhaps being able to purchase your favorite product with less effort will be taken positively, despite all the odds. Only time will tell.

References:

http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/fashion-bloggers-see-missed-opportunity-monetize-instagram-posts-153576