Instagram is building an endless shopping experience for its customers, becoming a giant virtual mall.
The app, designed to share photos, now allows you to "stroll" through an online store, browse products and even have fun - similar to the model of a real mall, so you can spend as much money as possible with maximum comfort.
Some of the transformations in favor of online shopping that have taken place on Instagram recently have been evident as a result of specific innovations in the app. Other changes have taken place gradually and, one might say, secretly from ordinary users.
When in 2018. Facebook adopted strategy to increase Instagram's profits, its operation has been reconfigured to double the number of ads shown. Starting in August 2019, users will receive one ad for every three regular posts in the feed. In Stories, ads are shown for every two to four stories. In addition, ad units have appeared in other tabs since the beginning of the year.
At the same time, Instagram has simplified the buying process by allowing its customers to order directly from the pages of brands and companies without leaving the app. The companies themselves can advertise their products in your feed, even if you don't follow a particular brand or influential blogger.
In this way, Instagram has become a shopping center in the hands of the user - it is something like a product order catalog with a focus on the personal preferences of the customer. Thanks to the app, the market has also created a certain type of brand, which has to have a special individual value in social media in order to succeed.
Brands are increasingly promoting not their own products, but a lifestyle they have developed - with brightly colored photos that reflect their philosophy and look great on Instagram.
Influential bloggers also promote certain brands' advertising in less obvious ways, showing a friendly audience examples of wearing or using a certain product in a natural environment, which is not perceived as obvious advertising but has a positive effect on brand sales.
Teens used to just hang out at malls to buy things, or just to look at things, but more often to just hang out with friends. Now they can easily do that online, spending the same time on their phones, because the consumerist boom from the malls is being successfully picked up by Instagram.
By the materials of QZ.Com.
