When Emily White joined Instagram from parent company Facebook it was clear what her goal was, to get Chief Executive Kevin Systrom to see the light. into a room. Ads and lots of them. It is no surprise that Instagram got into videos. It was not to compete with Vine, it was to get ads into the social network with videos. Emily is Director of business operations, so she has the job of turning Instagram; a app that has never made money into a cash cow all without losing its coolness and users. Ms. White said it should be ready to begin selling ads within the next year. A lot of companies already have marking on Instagram in the form of post already. Instagram has over 150 million monthly active users while Twitter over 200 million active users.
Brian Wieser, an analyst at Pivotal Research Group. said “Theoretically, [Instagram] could be making hundreds of millions of dollars today, but they would need a big sales force and they would risk polluting the environment.”
Co-founder of 140 Proof, a social-advertising service said “Brands always demand metrics. As it becomes a real advertising platform, they will be held to traditional standards, brands will want to see how these photos and videos tie back to their sales objectives.”
Since Ms. White is from Facebook, one would hope that she avoids repeating some of Facebook’s earlier missteps with advertisers in her quest to monetize Instagram. We know that she will build strong business and marketing partnerships but one hopes that she does not forget about her most important partner; the users.