Social Media Industry – Instagram | Report Analysis
Executive Summary:
This report is the analysis of the major industry, Social Media who is the fast growing industry in the 21st century. Businesses are now running through this industry and many are also earning enough to support themselves. Instagram is one of the companies of the industry that allows the users to upload photos and videos of themselves or a group instantly. The photos can also be edited with multiple filters, the users of the company have been increasing every year and now there are around million users currently. The use of Instagram is really common among the youth and now businesses have started using this platform to target audience and customers to expand their firms. The various aspects of Instagram have been explained in the report that are positive and negative, the report also recommends to the readers about how the celebrities can motivate the users to be confident in the society.
Introduction:
Everyone defines Social Media differently; it is an assortment of multiple digitalized software technologies typically shown as applications and websites. This industry offers individuals with digitalized surroundings in which they can send and accept digital information or data through a few social media grids (Appel, Grewal, Hadi & Stephen, 2019). According to Smith (2019) this industry is predicted to expand intensively in the coming years and businessmen/women will especially take advantage of it. The start of the use of social media marketing in business has already started and people are making more money through social media industry than following the traditional path. Social Media provides multiple advantages to different firms like improved brand status, enabling communication through word-of-mouth, a rise in the sales, sharing data in the business framework and accumulating intrapersonal support for the clients (Hajli, 2013). The different social media platforms used today for multiple purposes are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Snapchat (Appel et. al, 2019).
(Ospina, 2019)
The above graph shows the different age groups who are using different social media, YouTube and Facebook are excessively used by second age group that is aged between 25-29 and the rest of the mediums are excessively used by the first age group that is aged between 18-24.
Instagram:
This company was established in 2010, this company has a mobile application on its name and is easily available on Play Store (Android) and Apple Store (iPhone). Instagram has gradually increased as an application and is now used as a medium for social network marke branding and to expand the business (Ting, Ming, Run and Choo, 2015). When this company made its mobile application it was only used for editing and sharing photos from their account then different features were added on this application like one user can share photos and videos directly to another user and now Instagram allows its users to click a picture or a video on the spot, it doesn’t matter where they are and can be shared with other either nationally or internationally (Lim & Yazdanifard, 2014). In the year 2013, it was measured that Instagram had a hundred million users and estimation was calculated that four billion photos were uploaded on the user’s profile. Moreover, Instagram is extensively by the youth that is also shown in the graph above, the reason that youth is using this application more extensively because they are fascinated by taking multiple photos while using their smart phones and are of the habit to share it instantaneously (Abbott et al., 2013 as cited in Ting et al., 2015).
Visual Branding:
The main characteristic of Instagram as mentioned above is to upload photos and video that is the way to earn for many businesses. Business owners using attractive filters to make their photos appealing to the customers is the main generator of increased sales. The tactic the makes Instagram different from other Social Media companies is that Instagram can help the individuals to attract strangers through creatively branding their product. According to Hird (2013), the cleverness of Instagram is that it is only dependent on visuals, he also quotes an old saying that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’. Visual branding through Instagram can be done without any hassle because communication through photos can be understood easily for those who have the same interest, businesses target those audience through which their business can reach to new customers and those who have an interest in their product. These customers instantly buy those products due to creative marketing (Ting et at., 2015).
Trust:
Trust is an essential key for businesses to develop and expand in their fields. In a B to C, connection trust is significant in evaluating risk in the deal (Hajli, 2013). Through trust a business can grow, individuals make these businesses prosper by trusting the companies that they will deliver with utter honesty. Trust is a bridge that is measured by competence and benevolence, they strengthen trust in the business (Li et al., 2008). Through competence the person believes that the seller is not a scam and is trustworthy, on the other hand, benevolence is the strong relationship between a seller and a buyer (Ba & Pavlou, 2002). Instagram gives this self-satisfaction of trust to the customers through its feature of uploading photos instantly and those pictures that are real. Businesses use this tool to create trust among their target audience by uploading real life pictures.
Low self esteem:
Instagram allows the users to upload pictures of themselves and their friends, however, there has been a new trend going on where especially youngsters take selfies of themselves with the front camera. They edit the pictures and majority upload photos of themselves, this application allows the users to follow anyone including celebrities where they upload what’s going on in their lives and they become a part of social comparison where users compare themselves with them. The user observes how rich these celebrities are and starts to compare h/herself with them that can cause them to develop low self esteem or an inferiority complex (Dion, 2016). Dion’s (2016) paper included a study called #Instasad?: Exploring Associations Among Instagram Use, Depressive Symptoms, Negative Social Comparison, and Strangers Followed, where the author has discovered the link between Instagram and depressive symptoms. The finding showed that the users that were following many celebrities had negative influences whereas those users who weren’t following that many celebrities were satisfied.
Conclusion and Recommendations:
social media management is a vast industry that is evolving every minute of every day, the companies under this industry have new features every six months and people are instantly adapting to it. Instagram for one is growing immensely as it was established a decade and look at how it has flourished, businesses and firms use this platform to expand their services or even to start a service. Instagram is more common among youth; the youngsters have made this application a success. On one hand, there are multiple benefits where as on the other we see the most significant drawback of this medium is the negative impact on common man and how it lowers the self esteem of the people. The most important recommendation that I would suggest is that the majority of the people follow these celebrities who have the most lavish and extravagant lifestyles that looks good only in pictures. Moreover, these famous personalities should aware the people of their problems or issues and encourage them to be confident and true to their selves. Nevertheless, Instagram as a company is doing so good that in the coming years, we can see this all the business in the world using this to increase their sales and making this the ultimate platform to gain trust from the clients.
References:
Appel, G., Grewal, L., Hadi, R., & Stephen, A. (2019), ‘The future of social media in marketing’, Journal of Academy of Marketing Science, 48, 79-95, Springer Link, doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-019-00695-1
Ba, S. & Pavlou, P.A. (2002) ‘Evidence of the effect of trust building technology in electronic markets: price premiums and buyer behavior’ MIS Quarterly, 26(3), 243-268
Dion, A. (2016), ‘The effect of Instagram on self-esteem and life satisfaction’, 1-30, doi: https://digitalcommons.salemstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1091&context=honors_theses
Hajli, N. (2013), ‘A study of the impact of social media on consumers’, International Journal of Market Research, 56(3), 387-404.
Hird, C. (2013), ‘Social Media Marketing: A Best Practices Analysis of Selected Destination Magazine’, 1-35, doi: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1012.9871&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Li, F., Zhou, N., Kashyap, R. Sc Yang, Z. (2008), ‘Brand trust as a second-order factor: an alternative measurement model’, International Journal of Market Research, 50(6), 817-839, Research Gate Database, doi: 10.2501/S147078530820
Lim, S., & Yazdanifard, R. (2014), ‘How Instagram can be used as a tool in social networking marketing’, 2-7, Research Gate Databaase, doi: 265377226_How_Instagram_can_be_used_as_a_tool_in_social_networking_marketing
Ospina, E. (2019), ‘The rise of social media’, Our world in Data, blog post, doi: https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-social-media
Smith, K. (2019), ‘The importance of Social Media in Business’, Lyfe Marketing, Blog Post, retrieved on 9 January, 2020, doi: https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/importance-social-media-business/
Ting, H., Ming, W., Run, E., & Choo, S. (2015), ‘Beliefs about the use of Instagram: An Expolatroy Study’, International Journal of Business and Innovation, 2(2), 15-31.
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