It’s time for small businesses to get serious about Instagram

I’ve talked about Instagram’s growing significance in the role of digital marketing before. I promise I’m not just hyping up the app because I like using it to post pictures of my dog. (Though I do encourage you to follow @boatingindustry for updates and “throwback Thursday” photos from Boating Industry archives.)

I’m revisiting the topic because Instagram has announced it will begin to court small businesses through Facebook integration. Facebook bought the company for $1 billion three years ago and launched ads on Instagram two years ago. These ads have grown exponentially in that time.

Instagram will leverage Facebook’s sales resources to encourage small businesses to take their advertising to the image-sharing platform. The backend of Instagram’s advertising business got a huge upgrade in 2015, which will help marketers use Instagram in tandem with Facebook.

If you are already using Facebook in your digital marketing strategy and have yet to venture into Instagram, now is an ideal time to look into its possibilities. Boating is a highly visual medium and boating is an aesthetically geared industry – just looking at a picture of a boat on the water in the height of winter (like the below 0 weather Minnesota had almost all of last week) is enough to get users itching for their own experiences.

Instagram is more than the food photos and selfies that newscasters have poked fun at during the app’s early years. It’s time to take it seriously as a marketing tool.