Instagram has made a lot of changes in the recent months, some more drastic than others.
And now, the social media platform has finally rolled out another feature that has been in experimentation mode for months – Instagram ads. This also means that your Instagram feed is about to get much more annoying.
The new feature will allow advertisers to run a “slideshow” type of ad (for standard picture posts) as well as video ads that are up to 30 seconds in length. To put that into perspective, normal Instavideo posts only run for about 15 seconds. According to BGR, Insta-junkies in as many as 30 new countries can “look forward” to seeing ads in their feeds. TechCrunch wrote that this include Mexico, India, and South Korea.
And apparently, Malaysia too. Because we’ve just spotted one today, from local e-commerce site Lazada Malaysia:
How does Instagram know what to show you? What makes them think that you’re the target market for the said ad? According to their Help Center, you might see ads based on the people you follow and things you like on Instagram, your information and interests on Facebook and the websites and apps you visit.
But what if they got it wrong? What if you see an ad that you don’t like? Easy. If you click on “Sponsored” at the top right of the ad, you can choose to “Hide This”.
According to Instagram, you can also opt out of seeing ads based on sites and apps off of Instagram and Facebook (their parent company) from your device’s settings. Tweak your choices via Facebook’s ad preferences and ads settings.
But one thing to note though, is that even if you choose to opt out of seeing these types of ads, you’ll still see ads based on your activity on Instagram and Facebook.
On the other hand, if you’re interested in what is being advertised, you can hit “Learn More” and it’ll lead you to a separate page. In this case, clicking on “Learn More” at the bottom right of the Lazada ad led us to the Lazada app in Google Play.
Instagram advertising is not limited to just big brands alone because the platform is opening up ads to businesses for all sizes. Also, since Instagram is allowing advertisers to run 30-seconds video ads, this means that the platform is now going after television advertisers, since they can easily port their commercials into Instagram ads.
Brace yourselves, peeps.
Sources: BGR, TechCrunch, Instagram Help Center.
