When news reached The Practice HQ that Instagram were to start rolling out sponsored posts, we couldn’t help but wonder about two things: Will they disrupt the user experience? And most importantly, will they work in a brand’s favour?

Fashion designer, Michael Kors, was the first to run an advert on the photo-sharing platform, released at the beginning of this month. The post, captioned with: “5.15 PM: Pampered in Paris #MKTimeless”, featured one of the label’s classic watches surrounded by a softly lit plate of macarons, a coffee cup and a strategically placed Polaroid of a Parisian building. Initially, it received a barrage of negative comments such as “Ugh” and “Stupid” as users reacted to the cheesy advert. Aside from the verbal reaction however, it also received a staggering 98,000 “likes”- four times as many as the average Michael Kors post typically receives, showing that there was more in the way of a positive than negative response. This was then to increase to a massive 218,000 “likes” just less than 24 hours later. Indeed, Instagram analytics tool, Nitrogram, reported that Michael Kors actually gained nearly 34,000 new followers in the 18 hours succeeding the photo- 16 times as many followers as it would typically have generated from a non-sponsored post.

The surge in “likes” and follower numbers is likely in part to the increase in viewership that sponsored posts enable. Instagram pushes sponsored posts to a select demographic who do not already like the Michael Kors Instagram account. But in terms of engagement, did the advert work? Clearly, the figures speak for themselves, but when it comes to positive engagement and sales generation, the results are a little lacklustre. Following the post, 20 per cent of comments left were negative, with the rest predominantly neutral or unrelated, with only a small amount showing positive support. Furthermore, only 20 people expressed a desire to purchase a Michael Kors product, which translates to just 1 per cent of commenters.

Despite this, we say good on Michael Kors for testing out the platform’s new feature before it fully rolls out in the new year. The problem we envisage with Instagram though, is that it unfortunately offers advertisers a lack of knowledge about the user, as opposed to Google or Facebook, for example. Google can tailor ads based on user searches, for instance, while Facebook is privy to a host of user statistics including age, location, and interests. Secondly, being non web-based, Instagram can’t rely as much from metrics such as traffic visits and click referrals, making it harder for advertisers to reach the correct audiences who will likely drive sales. However, that’s not to say advertisers shouldn’t consider sponsored posts- they still increase visibility as well as raising brand and product exposure and awareness, which is never a bad thing. We’ll most certainly keep our attentions focused on our Instagram streams to see how advertising plays out when full integration occurs next year.

What did you think of Michael Kors’ first Instagram advert? Do you think the increase in sponsored posts from brands on Instagram will gradually become irritating? We’d love to hear your views as always, so please tweet to us @PracticeDigital and share your comments on our Facebook page. And please do follow us on Instagram too- no sponsored posts in the near future, we promise!!