Online advertising has become a huge market over the past few years, and numbers continue to climb. It’s no wonder that many online resources, including social media, have been trying to capitalize on these advertising dollars by presenting new ways for companies to promote their products and services.

For example, Instagram is stepping up their game with better ways for companies to advertise – have you noticed? Recently they rolled out a new carousel feature, which allows for multiple photos within a sponsored post. After users flip through all the photos, they then have the option of learning more by clicking a web link.

This is great news for businesses who advertise on Instagram for two reasons.

More Interactive

First, having the option of multiple pictures makes the post more interactive. Instagram gives examples of the carousel’s basic functionality and ideas for companies to creatively utilize this advertising platform.

Concepts include:

• A fashion company could use the carousel to deconstruct the individual products in a ‘look’.
• A car company might share an array of different features of a vehicle and provide a link to learn more about the new model.
• An advertiser could showcase how multiple ingredients come together to make a delicious meal.

Improved Calls to Action

Second, this is the first time that an active web link can be featured outside of a company’s profile section. This means that users had to click back to a profile page in order to get more information about products that were advertised in posts. That is no longer the case. In a world where convenience prevails, this is sure to result in a higher click through rate for businesses.

If a user isn’t interested in looking at more pictures, they can simply scroll past the post as they would if it were in the regular format.

Unfortunately, this feature is only for sponsored posts at this time. So no matter how much I want to post a whole succession of Throw Back Thursday pictures in one post, I’ll have to stick to posting one at a time.

#SmileGameOnPoint