When Facebook acquired Instagram earlier this year, many people failed to understand the connection (not to mention the price paid), as they wondered how the move would enhance or change the social network. Now, after several months since the acquisition, tech observers are now sure of one thing; that Facebook will monetize Instagram to increase its overall revenue. This much has been confirmed by Facebook’s P of Global Marketing Solutions, Carolyn Everson, however the question that still remains is exactly how the powerhouse social company will do this.
A great deal of the speculation stems from the fact that even Carolyn is not sure in which way, shape or form the wildly popular photo sharing platform will be monetized. She avoided answering anything related to the emergence of advertisements on this service during an interview, but Carolyn did said that “eventually we’ll figure out a way to monetize Instagram,” as “there are many brands that use Instagram right now to try to get a feel for how to engage with their followers.” So “we will definitely be figuring out a monetization strategy.”
Carolyn reiterated that the Instagram team is comparatively quite small and fresh, but she maintained that sooner or later this service would start making money for Facebook.
This statement and the sentiments behind it do not come as a real surprise because Mark Zuckerberg and company has been planning to monetize Instagram for quite some time now. In fact, this issue has now become a constant headache for the leading social network as they aim to appease a growing list of stakeholders.
Considering this situation, it seems that allowing ads to appear on Instagram would be the best solution of this problem, as it will help Facebook to earn revenue from this service in quick time. From that point on, expect the social giant to get creative with the ways they make money using Instagram.