The old adage ‘a picture paints a thousand words’ is taking on new meaning for advertisers in 2015.

While YouTube, Facebook and Twitter jostle over ad spend for their video offerings, the battle for building relationships with customers is quietly unfolding across visual social media platforms Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr.

Since launching its ad service last September, Instagram has maintained its stance as a premium content environment, with the company seeking to balance ad revenues without upsetting its users. For this reason, ads are frequency-capped and users can choose to like, comment on or hide ads from their feed. Instagram has a specific creative team working closely with brands to ensure sponsored content is of a suitably high standard.

According to James Quarle, Instagram’s global head of business and brand development, the focus is to “create an environment that’s authentic, transparent and honest” – but, backed by the might of Facebook, the advertising capabilities on Instagram are likely to quickly evolve.

Pinterest occupies an interesting position in that users often leverage the platform to curate, document and share future aspirations. To many advertisers, being able to identify someone as a distinct prospect, and directly deliver tailored ads to them, is highly valuable. Beta tested last year and rolled out this month, the only ad format currently available is a ‘Promoted Pin’.

In an effort to amplify this targeting opportunity, Pinterest last week announced that it had acquired Kosei, a data software start-up that specialises in personalised recommendation modelling. This tech acquisition is accompanied by a promise from Pinterest to offer advertisers greater access to its data this year, and perhaps even look to combine it with advertisers’ own data for the purpose of a campaign.

While Pinterest is focusing on smart data, Tumblr is relying on creativity to soak up marketing budgets. Last week it announced a new in-house creative lab called the ‘Creatrs Network’ which will enable advertisers to approach Tumblr artists and seek to curate their artwork both for use in Tumblr ad campaigns and for syndication across broader offline campaigns too.

Whether an advertiser is tempted by the lure of quality creative assistance or intelligent data, or a blend of both, 2015 is shaping up to be the year that social media platforms are encouraging any brand with a visual identity to get involved.

 

By Jane Power, the7stars. 

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