Weekly New/Digital Media (22)

Instagram is changing from photo-sharing app to shopping catalogue in your pocket instagram-2.jpg


Summary:
"It seems Instagram has been quietly transforming from a photo-sharing app to a shopping catalogue in your pocket with a novel take on advertising" 
This month 20 of the US based retail brands trailed a new feature allowing them to tag items and offer users more information and providing a link to the official websites.
This is perceived as a great move for producers who express the move as providng them with "“The possibilities for selling our products are endless,”. However this can have a negative effect for Instagram and its audience interaction. 
Amie Kewley, a fashion blogger says “I knew it wouldn't be long before this sort of thing was introduced, I feel like social media platforms are awash with brands trying to sell users things, whether it's apps or games or clothing,”
The new update also targets adverts from over facebook likes etc. at users.
"Curiously, as the number of advertisers and users is growing, the number of posts ordinary people share on Instagram is reportedly falling. This could be because there are so many options for photo-sharing, like Facebook and Snapchat." 
"Or it’s a sign that the way people use Instagram is changing as it becomes a shopping catalogue instead of a personal photo album. " 
Due to this increased amount of advertisments it becomes more improtant for them to be marked. 
"brave new world of digital advertising, where every product, no matter how it appears, could be for sale."
“Instagram is a massive source of inspiration for me, especially (or only) through bloggers posting personal style pics, so if there’s a way to integrate the shopping function with people's personal pages rather than just via brand pages then I can see this working really well and I would definitely use it,” Bethany told The Independent. “Only downside is... more shopping?”




Key statistics:
  • The numbers are positive: today Instagram has more than 500 million users, five times as many as it had in 2013. 
My opinion:
This can be a good move in terms of actually being able to find out where you can buy that cute top you saw someone wearing but then again people already post that or they tell someone in the comments, we arent that lazy that we cant go through the comments or ask.

I feel as instagram shouldn't be making this move, its bound to make them lose users, well those who use it for the social reasons. There are many other platforms users can do similar things such as on pin interests or just the accounts for certain accounts. Instagram already promotes and markets products through users providing these links, tags, mentions, obvious brand photos, they don't need an even more obvious feature that pressurizes audiences into sharing the brands etc. and tempting them to buy instead of just enjoy and appricate instagram on its own. 

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