Instagram's 'About This Account' Feature Is A Marketer's Advantage
Social media marketers will be delighted to hear that Instagram’s upcoming feature aimed at improving transparency, “About This Account,” enables you to view all ads currently running on any Instagram account.
Instagram has taken a cue from Facebook’s recent Info and Ads update, and it could mean a marketing advantage for those that decide to leverage it.
Here’s a brief recap of what Instagram’s “About This Account” feature is, and how you can use it to your competitive advantage.
What Is Instagram’s “About This Account” Feature?
The feature allows you to see additional information about an account:
- Creation date
- Country
- Name changes
- Shared followers
- Ads currently running
What makes this new feature valuable for advertisers is that you can use it to view all ads currently running on a particular account.
In a post published on Instagram’s blog last week, Mike Krieger announced that Instagram would be releasing new tools to “help keep Instagram safe.”
“In the coming weeks, you will be able to see more information about accounts on Instagram that reach large audiences so you can evaluate the authenticity of the account,” writes Krieger.
“To learn more about an account, go to their Profile, tap the … menu and then select ‘About This Account.'”
You will see the date the account joined Instagram, the country where the account is located, accounts with shared followers, any username changes in the last year and any ads the account is currently running.
-Mike Krieger, Co-Founder & CTO at Instagram
How To Leverage About This Account To Your Marketing Advantage
Much like Facebook’s Info and Ads feature that released in July, this transparency is a blessing for advertisers.
Why?
Because, for the first time, you can view all of the ads that your competitors are currently running.
This means that you can audit your competition.
Savvy Instagram marketers know that competition for the 1 billion (and growing) active users on the platform is heating up, and any competitive advantage offered by the platform’s tools is worth leveraging.
The ability to presumably view all of your competitor’s ads has enormous implications — and may help advertisers better audit their competitors’ creative.
For example, viewing your competitor’s ads will give you insight into their messaging, creative, and value proposition.
Understanding how your competitors are engaging an audience can not only help generate new ideas, but it can also help you identify gaps in your own content.
When does ‘About This Account’ go live?
While there is no specific launch date, the announcement mentioned that the feature (along with others) would go live in “the coming weeks.”
Instagram Continues To Expand Its Platform
With over a billion users, Instagram’s growing user base is only rivaled by Facebook, which bought Instagram back in 2012 for $1 billion.
Instagram’s remarkable rise. Source: TechCrunch
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