Instagram changes – what it means for developers

On June 1st Instagram implemented a new platform policy for all 3rd party developers who use Instagram content in their tools and services. This includes us, 24SevenSocial. So what are the Instagram changes? Instagram wants more control over how other apps and services use their platform. Naturally, they want to ensure their ecosystem has high quality and a certain standard. Instagram will only allow 3rd party tools to use content in specific ways.

What’s a 3rd party tool? In a nutshell, it’s all the tools and services built by other companies than Instagram that use Instagram functionality.

The Instagram changes support these scenarios:

• Let individuals share their own content with third party apps.
• Let advertisers understand and manage their audience, develop their content strategy, and get digital rights to media.
• Let publishers discover content, get digital rights to media, and share media using web embeds.

To ensure that all 3rd party developers are within these scenarios Instagram will review every request for access to data. Is tighter control over apps based on Instagram for the better? Not easy to say, but it will ensure a more streamlined ecosystem of apps. Their plan is to improve the collective user experience in their ecosystem.

What does these Instagram changes mean for 24SevenSocial, you might ask? Nothing, really 🙂 We are all good to go and approved by Instagram. You can use the Instagram features in 24SevenSocial as usual, both for creating Instagram ads and landing pages with Instagram content.

Marketing tip

While on the topic let’s look at smart ways to use Instagram in advertising and customer engagement with 24SevenSocial.

Step 1
Create a landing page in Creator. Use the Instagram widget to display images from Instagram. Turn on the function to vote for best pictures. All the folks who vote can later be included in a custom audience. Here is a good example of a successful Instagram landing page #MittGrønneOslo http://fb.st/jwfmy5.

Step 2
Set up an ad in Ads that links to the landing page. Remember to use Instagram as placement for the ad. Also, use the [tooltip title=”24SevenSocial URL shortener with custom call to action overlay!” placement=”top” trigger=”click” class=”” id=””]fb.st[/tooltip] link to the landing page so that you can analyze the statistics later.

Step 3
The ad is live and customers are navigating to the landing page, and voting. Now you can use Audiencer to set up a custom audience based on all voters to target them in follow-up campaigns.

Step 4
Make new ads that target the voters from the landing page. Delivering a message that is in context of the action they just performed to maximize conversion.