Instagram is so close to ruin

Do you know what we definitely need more about social media? Influencers and ads. And fortunately for us, Instagram has announced a new tool to cover a hybrid of both in your feed. Your Insta has never looked more # sponsored, baby!

In an article published Tuesday on the blog, Instagram announced the establishment of a new way for advertisers to reach their target demos by sending them commercials via influencers. According to Instagram, thanks to this branded content, "companies have the opportunity to tell the stories of their brand through the voices of creators, reach new audiences and measure their impact".

Posting on the blog indicates that ads, which will be merged into users' feeds and stories, will reach audiences that do not subscribe to the brand or creator. It should be noted that ads already displayed for brands are not necessarily followed, as you probably know. But by merging influencers with brands that are probably looking to leverage your bank account, these branded content ads are supposed to appear more diffuse. authentic, according to Liat Weingarten, vice president of brand communications at Old Navy.

"We are constantly looking for more sophisticated solutions, such as content-branded content ads, to offer partner content to the right buyers, instead of throwing it into the social circle," Weingarten said in a statement. "Promoting the content directly from the influence descriptor inherently gives the publication more authenticity than that derived from the brand descriptor, and we are seeing significantly higher engagement rates with this strategy."

Instagram said that this feature was among the most requested by companies – which is good for them, I guess? But this update marks the last slow-moving movement towards the inevitably indisputable ruin of the application.

Let's go back a bit. In 2012, Facebook had bought Instagram for $ 1 billion (crush the competition or engulf them, etc.). The following year, Instagram announced that it would start posting photo and video ads, writing at the time it was planning to "start slowly" and "focus on providing a small number of Beautiful high quality photos and videos and videos from a handful of brands are already excellent members of the Instagram community. "

This, reader, is not the advertising experience that many of us see in our flow today.

What makes Instagram (Pleasant?) Pleasant is somehow what distinguishes other social media sites. Because of the format, Instagram may be free of most of the inevitable toxicity, vitriol, misinformation or garbage you see on, for example, Twitter or Facebook, provided you keep your list tracked neatly . You do not even need to connect with people or characters you know. Following topics and hashtags means that you can largely eliminate the noise in favor of a relatively enjoyable experience. Previously, advertisements were fewer and more distant. Influencers, if you can imagine, did not even exist at one point on Instagram (or anywhere else).

But nowadays, not only are the ads overwhelming – appearing every three or four posts in feeds and stories, based on my experience – but I would say most do not seem "as natural to Instagram as photos and the videos you already enjoy, "as the company had originally announced.And look, I'm not here to shit about influencers, but I can not imagine that most Instagram users are going to be particularly excited to see even more spon-con mixed with their stream than they already see influencers make follow who spice it up through their profiles.

Moreover, do influencers really need more reach? I mean really? In fact, many influencers are full advertisers. And contrary to the opinions of leaders, this confluence of two distinct forms of brand marketing does not make a more "authentic" experience. That is, peddling goods and services through an influencer that users have no interest in following does not necessarily make the advertisements of this influencer more attractive. Mark.

These terrible changes come after what has been a tumultuous time on Instagram. Facebook co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger left the company last year after creating tensions with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. They were replaced late last year by Adam Mosseri, a long-time Facebook leader who was responsible for developing Facebook's news feed. Which, uh, does not seem to go so well.

To be fair, there is no perfect social media network. And do not get me wrong, Instagram was far from foolproof before this latest announcement of great ads. But dude, that brings Instagram – a generally good platform – dangerously close to the trash. Many thanks to Zuckerberg, once again, for making this possible.