Has Instagram Made Marketers too into Single Platform Minded?

Instagram has proved its marketing power for many brands, particularly emerging brands looking to promote discovery through imagery. Influencer marketing is now considered a genuine standalone marketing channel and the platform’s user count globally runs in excess of 1billion monthly active users. It also boasts the highest engagement rates per post when compared to any other social media platform.

With the trends only going one way, marketers from all levels and sizes of businesses and brands are ploughing money into the platform’s advertising functionality and of course the wider influencer market place. Kylie Jenner, now the world’s youngest self-made billionaire at 21, beating Mark Zuckerberg, widely has Instagram to thank for her success. Amassing over 120million followers and more often than not receiving in excess of 5 million interactions per post, is said to earn over $500,000 for a product placement (per post!). Though more recently she has reserved her account for the promotion of her own brands and product lines, this is a great example of just how powerful Instagram can be as a brand builder.

There is a potential issue on the horizon though. While it wouldn’t seem like Instagram is going to be going away anytime soon, the mammoth impact the platform is having on the industry is leading many marketers to become one dimensional. You can’t log on to LinkedIn without another ‘Instagram Specialist’ offering to earn you followers for example – and for an entrepreneur, that’s a dangerous game to play. While the platform clearly has its power and significant ability to influence at scale, there’s an increasing number of brands who are spending all their time on Instagram and neglecting the use of other viable social platforms.

Twitter for example, is still arguably the best platform for real time reactive conversation and news. And while Facebook, the owners of Instagram, ironically seem to be suffering from being ‘off trend’ versus the Insta monster they have created, they still command an enormous global audience of daily active users.

If Instagram disappeared tomorrow many brands and business would lose practically their entire organic marketing audience. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket. It’s also important to remember that the level of competition on Instagram isn’t going to subside anytime soon. It is becoming more and more cluttered and reaching the desired target audience, particularly the young Millennial and emerging Gen Z demographic will continue to cost you significantly as you fight for a share of the available sponsored exposure.

While there is no argument against the use of Instagram, try to keep social media a well rounded approach for your brand and avoid tunnel vision.