Marketing Plan And Strategy For Social Media Platform: Instagram

Marketing Objectives for Instagram

In the present global business, it has become essential for all the firms to make sure that they have an effective strategy for their future operations (Turban, et al., 2017). In the growth of the company the role of marketing and strategies is very important. In the Cut throat competition it has become crucial for the companies to make sure that they have identified their market and the population in it. In the social media market the competition is even tougher and many kinds of innovations have made the situation tougher (Neti, 2011). In order to eliminate the situations related to the competitive environment companies like Instagram has to adopt new kinds of strategies as well as set objectives for their business. This report highlights the marketing objectives of the company as well as the strategies that they are using for increasing their growth rate. It also showcases the marketing mix for Instagram.

It is crucial for any company to make marketing objectives (Turban, Bolloju and Liang,  2011). This helps them in achieving the task in the given time while making sure that they do not deviate from their original goals. Marketing objectives for Instagram is as follows:

• To become one of the leaders in the social media Industry by the end of 2020 (Laurent, 2017).
• To enhance the growth rate of the company by 20% by the end of 2019 financial year (Wired, 2017).
• To incorporate virtual reality in the by the year 2022 (Litsa, 2017).
• To enhance the reach of the company by 20% to the larger part of the business marketing by the end of 2019 (Wired, 2017).
• To become the most secured social media platform by the end of financial year 2019 (Laurent, 2017).

It is essential for any company to target their customers (Ting, Wong, de Run, and Lau, 2015). This helps them in making strategies as per their demand. Targeting a particular set of people from the mass always helps in understanding the demands of these people and work accordingly to provide better services to their target audience.

The major target audience for the Instagram is the young age people from 14 years to 55 years. This also includes some part of the audience beyond 55 years of age group. This is due to the reason that the younger generation of people are highly active on the social media sites. The marketing campaign for the Instagram must also focus the same age group of people. Company can prepare plans for them accordingly. The target market is not bifurcated on the base of sex, ethnicity, demographics or social status (Xue, 2016). Apart from this company can also focus on the business or organisations as Instagram can act as a business for the place to market their products. This will be highly beneficial for instagram to make it a place where the companies can market its products.

It is also crucial for the company to make sure that what kind of impression they want to put in the minds of the people (Ting, de Run and Liew, 2016). Positioning strategy helps in creating the image in the minds of consumers. This company aims to become the place where people can be entertained. Instagram aims to become the social media site where people can easily communicate with others as well as share their feelings. In the positioning strategy of the company they aim to become inexpensive, luxurious and highly innovative mode of communication. They are putting efforts for becoming place where companies can market their products by beating all their competitors. This company wants that their site must be easy to use and hence can be used by the people who are not even educated.

Targeting and Positioning

An effective growth strategy helps a company in achieving higher growth rate. This is very essential for the company to make sure that they have a strategy that is better than their competitors (Weilenmann, Hillman and Jungselius, 2013). The growth of the company totally depends on the effectiveness of the strategy they have sued. The formulation of the strategy has to be on the basis of the situation it is facing in the market. It must surrounds around the global presence of the company. Since it is Instagram and hence they need to make sure that they have incorporated best of technologies for their international competitors.

Before making any strategy Instagram needs to make sure that they have a proper understanding of the environment by which they are surrounded. It is one of the primary tasks of the company before making any strategy. Apart from this the company also needs to make sure that they have a plan for implementing such strategy. Strategies that are based on the objectives set by the company are always helpful (Hu, Manikonda and Kambhampati, 2014). It is also to be made sure that growth strategy must be made citing the innovations that are going on in the industry.

Instagram can take use of some of the strategies for its growth:

• Hash tags: It is the hash tags that have made the company to reach to the consumers at a faster rate. A better use of hash tags at many other social media platforms can be helpful for the company. This must be taken into the use so that new kinds of links to the website can be created. Since the Facebook is a parent company of the Instagram and it has billions of follows and hence using the hashtags there can be beneficial for the company.
• Innovations: Company needs to make sure that they are continuously pumping their cash into the research and development (Hochman and Manovich, 2013). It is also to be noticed that there are larger number of companies that are coming up in the social media industry. Innovation must be based on the requirements of the company, the demand of the market and the trends in the industry. With the emergence of new mobile technology growth of Instagram must not be a problem.
• Value preposition: It is necessary for the company to make sure that they add value to their products. It is the only thing for which customer pays. The use of Instagram apps can be increased if the people think that the facilities provided by the company are up to their expectation. This cannot be done without the help of the new additional features in the site. The added feature always helps a company to attract more number of consumers towards the site (Lee, et al., 2015). A holistic approach that benefits the customers is important. Currently Instagram is most widely used for the purpose of communication or posting of the photos or videos.
• Acquisition: This will help the company to ensure that no new competitors with a brand new idea can come into the market and can challenge the superiority of the Instagram. Use of acquisition also helps the company to reach into the new markets and expand their market share. There are some regions of the world where there is predominance of some other social media apps like in China.
• New technology: Instagram also needs to thinks about incorporating new technology in it. This must be done citing the future technology. One of the primary technologies in this regards is present with Facebook its parent company i.e. Virtual reality. Facebook owns Oculus which is the advanced technology in the virtual reality. Company needs to do research in this regards so as to use of virtual reality for their apps (Silva, et al., 2013). This technology will also enhance the attractiveness of the site so that more people can be added to their business.
• Acquiring new talents: In the industries that are associated with the information and technology must be highly concerned about acquiring talents. It is crucial for the company like Instagram to make sure that they have an excellent talents present in their company. This will help them in having edge over the other competitors. Growth is always dependent on the innovations that a company does which is totally dependent on the talents they have in the company (Constine, 2017).
• Brand awareness campaign: For the growth of the company of the scale of Instagram, it is essential that it has an effective marketing strategy. This helps in increasing the brand awareness of the firm which is highly essential for their growth. Innovative promotional campaigns and making local brand ambassadors from different regions of the world can be highly beneficial for the company.
• Focus on local markets: It is always crucial for the social media companies to get associated with the demands of the local market (Ferrara, Interdonato and Tagarelli, 2014). Instagram need to get attached with the local market by the use of programs that are linked with local places. For example they can take use of any festivals and events for running the campaign. Use of hash tags can be highly useful in this regards.
• Retaining old customers: There are large numbers of companies that are coming to the business with new ideas which attracts consumers towards themselves. In such situation it is difficult for Instagram to retain their consumers. In order to ensure this company needs to innovate itself continuously.
• Geo targeting: This is another marketing strategy that Instagram can adopt for delivering consumers with the contents that are more relevant to them and based on their local presence. This is a highly effective strategy that is used by the firm for making the presence of users more relevant (Abbott, et al., 2013).

It is important for the company to make sure that they focus on their strengths (Jang, et al., 2015). This gives them competitive advantage over the other competitors in the industry. It is crucial for the company to make sure that they have a selected one of their competencies that will help them in giving competitive advantage over the others. Instagram has lot of competencies which can help them in gaining competitive advantage they can use one of them to make sure that they have higher growth.

The competitive advantage that Instagram can take use of is the innovation with ways in which a photo or video can be posted. More innovation in this field will help company in fulfilling the demands of the people which will help them in giving competitive advantage over the others (Karimkhani, et al., 2014). Continuous addition of new features and removal of the old and unnecessary ones gives them a completive advantage.

The above stated table depicts that both Snapchat and Instagram has similar kinds of features. But Cloning of the Snapchat has surpassed well beyond that of Instagram. In the month of March Facebook in its own Messenger app launched the version of stories. This app replete with masks, interactive frames and masks. Intagram is having more than 600 million monthly active users on the other hand Snapchat has not even announced the number of monthly active users. Broad appeal of Facebook across geographic and demographics is the social network’s feat. With the use of simplicity and utility and the smart acquisition over the years has made Facebook a network of 2 billion people network. Many people with all age groups have a profile on Facebook. Even when Snapchat did not want to grow as rapidly as Facebook then also to match the Instagram growth they will have to redefine the marketing for older demographics and educate people about the ways in which App must be used.

Growth Strategies

It is crucial for the company of the scale of Instagram to have a proper marketing mix. It will help the company in placing their products better than their competitors. An effective marketing mix program will help the company in achieving success with their new products.

• Products: It is having products that allow one users to share their contents with other users. It gives the users a chance to upload pictures and tag others on the same. Geotagging feature helps the company to provide their consumers to access all the contents at one single place (McNely, 2012). Users can see post from all around the words with just the use of keywords that are generated through the use of hastags. Users can share their temporary story as well as sharing live videos. Apart from this they offer a whole lot of packages like face filters and augmented reality stickers.
• Price: Just same as the other social media sites Instagram also offers its services free of cost (Rusli, 2012). People can download the app from playstore or IOS. Company must not put burden on the person even in the future on any of the post that a user makes.
• Place: This Company offers its services throughout the world on various kinds of operating systems. On iOS and android this service is free of cost. It is available along all the mobile applications, internet based servers and web. It is one of the fastest growing social media site with a speed of 20-25 % in a year.
• Promotion: This firm like other companies relies heavily on the word-of-mouth marketing. It is also called viral marketing. Instagram takes use of direct marketing as well as searches for the users that are looking for promoting their ventures.
• People: This Company has a very excellent talent pool. This helps them in making innovations at very high speed. Facebook its parent company travels all around the world to hire best of talents (Malik, 2013). They are well known for higher employee satisfaction which is necessary for retaining valuable employees.  
• Physical evidence: This company aims to make its services fresh and give a brand new experience to its consumers. In modern times it has not only remained as a photo sharing app but has become a platform where people shares knowledge (Index, 2013). With the features like Boomerang people can create small videos in a loop which makes the post more exciting.
• Process: This Company has adopted all the processes that helps them in staying edgy and have connection with their clients on constant basis. User need to install the app gets logged in and use it for sharing their thoughts in the form of various ways. The use of artificial intelligence in some or the other ways has made it possible for the company to deliver products to the consumers as per the demand of the market.

Media plan will help the company in increasing its reach of the campaign. This will define the schedule for the advertisements activities.

The above made signs represent different kinds of advertisements.

+ – Advertisement A

?- Advertisement B

×- Advertisement C

Π- Advertisement D

In any marketing it is essential that a company monitors is overall process and evaluate continuously its performance so as to make changes as required.

• Analyse the change in your sale: It is essential for Instagram to monitor whether increase in the number of users is after the campaign. Did target met or not met. It exceeded or falls short.
• Review cost of campaign: It is also essential to review the amount of spending on the campaign. This can be measured with the metrics like ROI.

There are some other ways of evaluating and monitoring that includes evaluation in terms of monitoring ad campaigns in terms of cost and performance. Doing sales analysis by the use of breakeven, profit and loss statement and benchmarking. Take feedback from the sales department give them compensation. Check performance and cost ratio as well as check out the new people if they match with Instagram target consumers or not.

Conclusion 

From the above based report it can be concluded that Instagram is one of the fastest growing social networking company in the world. It is crucial for the company to make sure that they have effective marketing strategies for ensuring their long term growth. This will help them in making sure that they have competitive edge over the other competitors. There are many types of strategies that can be used by the Instagram for achieving success in the market. Adding new features and hiring new talents will help company in facing this completion. It is also crucial that Instagram adopts proper marketing mix program that will help them in making their growth rate even faster.

References

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Selection of Competitive Advantage

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