BREAKING NEWS! Instagram enables users to show advertisements on their profiles! Okay, not breaking news, but Instagram is now testing a few new features! One of these features is the ability to add advertising directly to your profile page! Could this be a help to content creators or a nightmare that drops engagement? The social media giant has rolled out this feature to a group of users and is now analyzing the response. Based on the results, we could see these profile ads released for additional Instagram users.

Instagram Enables Users to Show Advertisements

There are so many questions that will need to be answered. Will this become a new way for users be able to monetize their Instagram accounts? how many followers will users need to have before enabling the feature? Also, will you be able to select which ads are placed on your profile?

A NEW WAY TO MONETIZE YOUR INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT?

Right after learning about Instagram’s new profile ads feature, monetization instantly came to mind. If done right, this could be a fantastic way for users to make a little extra money on Instagram for the content they are creating. You would essentially be earning ad revenue when a number of users visit your profile page and are served ads. Whether these will be banner ads, video ads, or a mix of both is still up in the air. Instagram can get really creative to add value to content creators. However, that is if they would even appreciate the feature. Regardless, if profile advertisements is rolled out to the masses, you will most likely have the option to disable them.

HOW MANY FOLLOWERS WILL YOU NEED?

Just like many other features, you are required to have a certain number of followers. Especially during the launch of a brand new feature. If this is the case, there won’t be too many micro-influencers that will be eligible to participate in running ads directly on their profile. This may be reserved for users with followings of over 100k. But you never know. This may be widely available for users with 100, 1,000, or even 10,000 followers. Especially if it brings in more ad revenue to Instagram.

WILL YOU BE ABLE TO SELECT WHAT ADS ARE PLACED?

When you are the owner of a brand, what you allow to be shown alongside your messaging is important. One advertisement that doesn’t align with your brand’s image or is found unpleasant or against what you believe in can confuse or even turn away your audience. Once this profile ads feature is officially rolled out, many users will have the conflict of whether or not to risk their reputation to be tarnished by one bad ad placement. It would be extremely important for user to be able to select which ads are shown and which are not. Hand picked to maintain clear messaging. We do not see this with Google Adsense. If you place Adsense ads on your website or YouTube videos, you have no say of which ads get served to your readers and viewers. If Instagram goes down the same route, this may be a challenge.