Deployment Strategy of Instagram

Jiahao Yang  4/27

https://www.wsj.com/articles/instagram-finds-focus-under-efficiency-guru-1492075801?mod=djem_jiewr_IT_domainid&mg=id-wsj

1. Timing

Last year is the year of fast-developing Snapchat. However, its competitor Instagram also launched many new features last year, including the stories of pictures or videos that vanish after 24 hours, which was exactly Snapchat’s main feature. Instagram see this as the future trend of social media so it copy that feature into the app. This is a move at the right timing that prevents them from being thrown behind by the new generation of social media. And it turns out that because of this new feature, Instagram get more users and even stop the growing trend of Snapchat’s DAU.

2. Compatibility

Instagram’s new stories feature is not compatible with other products or apps. Users can not post photos or videos they shoot via their camera. The only gateway is Instagram itself, which means all the contents posted on stories must be shot within the app Instagram. This monopoly strategy is based on they have large amount of loyal users.

3. Pricing

There’s not much pricing in this social media app. As its income mostly comes from advertisers instead of users.

4. Distribution

There’s not much distribution channel in Instagram.

5. Marketing

Since Instagram be bought by Facebook, Facebook has always been doing the promoting job to introduce its large user base to try Instagram. This is one of the most important reason that lead to the second rapid user growth of Instagram since its initial user growth. Instagram also successfully positioned itself as a picture-based social media, which is much more simple and quiet compared with other social medias with mass informations.