Recently Business Insider ran the
provocative headline: “One Statistic That Should Convince Every Small Business
To Get On Instagram.” The statistic
(according to an analytics company SumAll) is that Instagram generates 10% more
engagement than Facebook or Twitter. The
article goes on to declare that this increase in engagement leads to direct
sales.
I’m convinced. For law practices, convenience stores,
jewelry stores and coffee shops – every single one of them should be on
Instagram. It’s a literal no-brainer.
Just to play Devil’s Advocate….
Let me backtrack for just a second. I don’t know if it might be prudent to take a
look at demographics before deciding to go all-in on Instagram? It seems to me that engagement (even if it is
truly as high as reported) may not be as helpful if I don’t have an appropriate
audience to engage:
By Gender
68.2% Female
31.8% Male
By Age
23.5% Under 18
34.4% 18 – 25
30.7% 26 – 35
8.2% 36 – 45
2.1% 46 – 55
1.0% Over 55
By Country
53.5% United States
6.9% Brazil
6.0% Thailand
4.0% United Kingdom
3.5% Australia
26.3% Other
(as of May 25, 2012)
Even though Mark Zuckerberg claims that
Instagram users are 100 million strong and growing, if a business isn’t selling
almost exclusively to Gen M it’s tough to understand how an Instagram account
will reach its intended audience. Of
course that’s probably an apt assessment of any social platform that isn’t
named Facebook or Twitter, but seems to contradict the assertion that all small
businesses should use the platform.
Also, ten times Facebook and Twitter
engagement is 10 percent. For this
statistic to be true, every picture you put on Instagram would have 10 percent
of your followers interact with it. How
much time would users actually spend “engaging” with your post when they have
10 times the amount of engagement to accomplish? And how would a more fleeting interaction
drive an increase in sales? In order for
this to be true and actionable, it should really be supported by a few data
sets.
Nothing is universal and social media isn’t
magic
Anything purported to be a cure-all
probably isn’t. Any standalone social
media platform purported to drive sales probably doesn’t. I cringe when writers make these assertions,
because they never hold water.
Why did Forrester conclude (from a wide
data set) that email and AdWords were a much more effective ways of driving
sales than social media? It could be
that those channels have more targeted reach and are more reliable delivery mechanisms. There’s probably more to it, but that’s
irrelevant. It’s irrelevant because
there is good data supporting their findings.
There is evidence of a movement
(particularly for Gen Z) away from Facebook to platforms like Instagram and
Tumblr. Anecdotally, I love
Instagram. But taking the giant leap in logic
to say that it may have been successful for a few businesses (bearing in mind
that there is no available data supporting this), and saying that all
businesses should use Instagram is ludicrous.
That said, if a business isn’t using AWeber
and AdWords (or their equivalents, audience-depending), I’m going to say that
going all in Instagram may be a little reckless.
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