Instagram is an American social media platform and company that focuses on video and photo sharing. Currently, it’s a subsidiary of Facebook. Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger were the founders of Instagram, and they established the social media platform in October 2010. It was only for iOS in the beginning, and the company launched it for android in April 2012.
The social media platform attracted more than one million users in two months after launching the platform. Its growth rate reached over 10 million users at the end of the first year, and it greatly impressed Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook acquired Instagram for approximately one billion dollars.
Speaking of the world’s most mobile downloaded application, Instagram falls at the 4th position in 2020. According to a study, Instagram surpasses 2 billion monthly active users, whereas it has 500 million active daily users. Cristiano Ronaldo leads the celebrities in terms of highest followers of 253 million dollars.
According to an estimate, the annual revenue of Instagram in 2020 was $24 billion dollars, and its contribution to Facebook’s total earning was 36.9%. USA and India are the biggest markets of Instagram, both of them have 140 million users.
Instagram swot analysis is our topic for discussion today. It’s going to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the leading social media platform. Instagram swot analysis as follows;
Table of Contents
Instagram Strengths
Integration
Instagram is effectively using the integration technology to its advantage by combining it with other leading platforms like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and others. It allows users to post their content on various platforms at once. It offers great flexibility to social media users.
Multimedia Pioneer Platform
Instagram has the unique advantage of being the pioneer of specialized video/photo platforms in the social media industry. Today, it may seem an ordinary thing, but it was revolutionary back in 2010. When you combine all of these factors, then it helped the platform reach one billion users per month.
Filters
Instagram also pioneers in offering the built-in filter feature, so that the people could fix the lighting, brightness, and add various other styles to their photos and videos. You won’t need any other makeup application in its presence. Such features played a significant role in attracting the attention of the users.
Direct Messaging
As we know that Instagram is a photo and video platform, where people use hashtags and captions along with their visual content before sharing it. People would have the option to like, share, comment, and send a direct message to the content creators. The public comment section isn’t a good place for business, marketing, and other promotional things. That’s where the role of direct messaging comes into play.
Parent Brand
As many of you are aware of the fact that Instagram is the subsidiary brand of Facebook, and everyone knows the tech giant company Facebook. When you have the world’s top social media platform backing you up, then it offers you a lot of advantages in terms of financial resources and technical support. That’s why Instagram has made tremendous growth and progress in a short time.
Global Reach
Instagram is operating its business worldwide with more than 2 billion monthly active users. Since it is a public platform, and that’s why people use it for various reasons like promotion of their products/services, selling, and connecting with friends and family members. However, it doesn’t matter whatever their goals and objectives are, they all actively use the platform.
According to a study conducted by Mention in 2018, 71% of US businesses use Instagram for business.
Hashtags
The most important element of Instagram posts is hashtags. They allow users to rank up their content in the searches and reach their required target audience. However, if the content is good, then it helps the creators to increase their following.
Do you know that an average post published on Instagram contains 10.7 hashtags? (HubSpot)
Instagram Weaknesses
Limited Communication Channel
When we talk about two-way communication, then Instagram offers a limited communication medium. Like people can only send direct messages or do public comments. If other people are also commenting and sending direct messages, then your message would get lost in the threads.
One Way Traffic
Many companies and businesses employ paid promotions and sponsored posting features of Instagram. The platform allows them to embed a link to their online store at the bottom of the post, if people want to buy it, then they can directly go there. However, there is a surety that people would do the shopping after viewing the advertisement.
Data Issues
Many critics are hailing on Facebook for various reasons like leakage of users’ personal information to the advertisers, data breaches, and privacy issues. It has jeopardized the reputation of Facebook to a great extent, and it has also impacted Instagram. New users are highly cautious about their personal information and how the platform would handle it.
Instagram Opportunities
Sponsor
Influencers, celebrities, and public figures have hundreds of millions of followers on Instagram. Companies and businesses contact them for shoutouts and promotions of their products and services. In fact, Instagram is the major source of earning of many influencers via marketing and promotion of businesses and companies.
In order to increase the traffic on the platform, the company should invite more influencers to join Instagram.
Smartphones and social media
If we study the recent trends and statistics, then internet usage and purchase of smartphones have been increasing for the past few years. It presents a great opportunity for the platform to amplify its market because Instagram is the best app for visual content lovers. The company should use this trend to its advantage.
According to Statista, the estimated number of smartphone users is 6.4 billion, with an annual increase of 5.3%.
Video Ads
Many other platforms allow users to create ads in the form of pictures and videos however they like, and they have a built-in feature to develop ads. In short, marketers don’t have to hire an external advertising agency for their ads. They can do so by using the embedded features of the platform. Instagram should include such features in its platform.
Instagram Threats
Low Visibility
It was easier for people to become visible with their visual content and posting in the beginning. Nowadays, it has become almost impossible for an ordinary business user to amplify its reach without using the sponsored posting and the influencer shout-out. Only a few people and businesses are the center of attention on Instagram.
Schedule Posting
Many influencers and companies use the automated tool of schedule posting. They select posts in the form of videos and photos for a month and put them in the funnel of automated tools. The application would keep on posting the scheduled content on time. It seems an excellent feature, but it has significantly dropped the active user rate.
Beauty Race
Short videos, selfies, and photos have increased the trend of beauty consciousness, body, and figure cautiously. Resultantly, the trend of plastic surgery is also increasing like fillers, botox, and butt lift to make themselves more attractive. You can say people are beatifying themselves at the cost of their health. Often pictures and videos on Instagram are the product of a high level of editing and filters.
Strong Social media Competitors
According to NYTimes, Instagram is losing its pipeline of young users. According to Insta strategy document indicates the 13 to 44 years old users left Instagram for YouTube and TikTok and teenagers inclined more to Snapchat. This happened because these apps offer more entertainment and communication interests.
According to Piper Sandler’s report, based on responses from 9,800 US teens, Snapchat is the most popular social media platform, with 34% of respondents’ top preference. At the same time, TikTok and Instagram were 28% and 25% of respondents’ top picks, respectively.
Conclusion
After an in-depth study of Instagram swot analysis, and its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, we’ve realized that Instagram is the world’s leading platform. The company should work on its weaknesses in order to avoid the threat and focus on its strengths to capitalize on opportunities.
