Competitive Analysis

The top 3 competitors for Instagram are: Snapchat, Pinterest and flickr.

Competitor 1: Snapchat
Strengths:
Snapchat is one of the fastest growing social media platforms in digital
marketing. The app is used to send videos/pictures for a maximum length
of 10 seconds which reflects on snapchats strength in privacy. Snapchat also
gives you the option of posting stories in which you can add multiple snaps
to a feed in which people who have followed you can see. This is very
beneficial to business and associations with a large social media following to
promote experiential marketing, upcoming events, and other general news.
Stories also get publicly promoted to other snapchat users, and create great
brand awareness and association, a key tool in public relations and general
advertising. Snapchat is widely known for its use of comedic filters that can
at sometimes used to promote video games, movies etc. A large consumer
base of snapchat is millennials, who are enticed by visually modifying their
look which brings in more downloads, sales etc. The mobile interface is
sleek, stylish and fast and easy accessible on all technological platforms.
Snapchat also has a feature to direct message someone while also sending
pictures at the same time, making it also a direct marketing tool that is
utilized.

Weakness:
Although snapchat is great for sharing images and videos, the brand
has been affected through the sharing of explicit images and videos. Photos
can be saved if the recipient of the photo decides to screen shot it, which
really hurts the brand in the aspect of not permanent. Adding to the point
is the problem of it being not permanent. Consumers like the aspect of being
able to view photos after theyre posted, and are not able to obtain that want
with snapchat. Another big problem with snapchat is that it is too narrow of a
market, making it significantly hard is snapchat wants to expand and
promote to other demographics and psychographics.

Opportunities:
Expansion through the business using snapchat as a platform for public
relations, experiential marketing, general advertising. A lot of endorsements
from other companies at these events can really help snapchats brand
resonance and awareness grow. Snapchat is tailored well to advertising
agencies that can use this very effectively to market to the millennial
 demographic, who have high interests in snapchat and disposable income.
Innovation is a tool that snapchat can use to keep users motivated and
captivated. Through advances in user interface, new snapchat filters,
whacky filters, it can keep consumers engaged and interested in hopes to
keep a customer base rather than moving to a different social media
platform such as Instagram, Facebook etc.

Threats:
A big threat that can hurts the image of the brand is the legal actions
that have been affiliated with lawsuits against sexual harassment,
distribution of explicit images, cyberbullying, and videos through snapchat
users. Liability issues could be a threat that really hurts the image and the
way consumers perceive snapchat, and if nothing is done about it this could.
Instagram adopting snapchats story concept and using it in their own hurts
snapchats differentiation as Instagram has absorbed a key platform in their
product.

Snapchat Metrics/Revenue:

Estimated daily active users: 100 million (though some sources believe it could
be closer to 200 million)

Number of Snaps sent each day: 400 million

Percentage of users that are women: 70%

Core users ages: 13-24 years old

77% of college students use Snapchat

Only 1% of advertisers are using Snapchat for marketing (which means theres
not a lot of competition, and theres a whole lot of room for you!)
(Gotter, 2016)
 - Snapchat will collect $367 million in ad revenue in 2016 and grow that figure 155%
next year to $935.5 billion
- Snapchat's impact on the ad market is growing as it approaches $1 billion in revenue
in 2017
(Sloane, 2016)

Competitor 2: Pinterest
Strengths:
Pinterest utilizes pin boards In which uses can pin and post pictures,
images and videos that can be customized to user needs and preferences.
Pinterest has stimulating vibrant pictures, that captures attention to users.
Pinterest has a unique format and layout for their boards, and talking to
others on the website. When looking at different boards Pinterest offers
suggestions relative to your searching history and does personalized
marketing to its customers by offering promotions. Pinterest has an easy
interface to operate, can store ideas on the website, and has an variety of
searches related to education, art, health etc. Pinterest also has an analytics
section, in which the user can track down data from usage over a period of
time and compare and contrast.

Weakness:
All of the content posted, shared, or saved can only be accessed
through the website. A lot of the content of Pinterest is geared towards a
younger generation (Gen Y) and is missing on a potential market in Gen X
and Baby boomers. Education related searches are only literacy and
 numeracy related. A vast majority of the board and item pinned are art
related to food, art, personal items, fashion, and not related enough to
educational, business related, or science posts and ideas. Pinterests search
engine is not always relevant to request, and can take time to find the
required search. Pinterest is also viewed as a female based website, that
drives most men away from using it due to the vibrant colours, pictures, etc.

Opportunities:
Pinterest can adopt the website to more advertising to generate further
revenue, brand resonance, equity, positioning etc. They can try to appeal to
the male demographic by changing the layout of the website, perceptions
regarding their website. Pinterest can try to appeal to more educational
based workers such as teachers, by adding in more educational features.
Can be a useful tool for journalists to post stories, blog, and advertise on
behave of the brand and company.

Threat:
A threat that Pinterest can face is copyright and legal issues regarding
property rights of images and videos that do no have permission to post on
the website. Theyre many other websites far easy to use for teaching
purposes, a market segment that Pinterest can lose profits in. Pinterest has
a variety of business with a variety of products, which can produce
counterfeit products and services. Some of the items pinned, or websites are
fake which Pinterest credibility can be questioned.

Pinterest Metrics/Revenue:
78% of active Canadians on Pinterest are female
77% are under 44 years old
31% of Canadian pinners are single
47% have children
73% are employed part-time or full-time
34% of Canadians using Pinterest are early adopters
86% own mobile devices
50% own desktop devices
45%55% of Canadian pinners are replacing print media with it
3639% are replacing search engines or other social media networks with Pinterest
(Mckinnon, 2016)
 - TechCrunch has obtained documents that show Pinterest has
been forecasting $169 million in revenue this year and $2.8
billion in annual revenue by 2018. Pinterest was also expecting to
grow its monthly active users to 151 million by
the end of 2015 and 329 million by 2018.
- Pinterest is generating $1.44 per active user, based on its 2015
projections. It expects this number to grow by $9.34 by 2018.
- Pinterest is seeing its strongest growth outside of the U.S., accounting
for 60% of new users. The fastest growing markets last year were the
UK, Japan, France, Germany and Brazil.

(Roof, 2015)

Competitor 3: Flickr
Strengths:
Flickr is able to store up to 1tb of data in their archive with
images, videos, etc. Flickr has an easy interface use, able to navigate with
relative ease and find what is desired. Flickr is linked to other social media
platforms such as twitter, and Facebook. It is convenient to store information
for large groups of individuals that can access it, which can benefit
businesses instead of mass send emails with attachments. Flicker allows you
to organize your content with precision and accuracy with date, times, and
allows to tag other users in those posts. It also contains its own blog, with
daily FAQS and other inquiries for its users.

Weakness:
Flickr has limitations on the length of their videos on uploading.
Flickr prohibits you from using the website to promote or sell any ideas or
products and other commercial activities. Downloading is limited to only 1
item per time, and can be time consuming. Flickr does not offer printing of
images and would have to go to another retailer for that service.

Opportunities:
Flickr can adapt to promoting other business and commercial
activity in order to get brand resonance, revenue, publicity, etc. Flickr can
align itself with other well known business in order to build brand
association, image, and value. Flickr can generate good positioning through
advertisement, reputable opinion leaders to endorse, which will generate
credibility and relevance, and can utilize their key platform ideas such as 1 tb
of data for differentiation.

Threats:
Since Flickr does not allow endorsement and commercial activities, it
hurts their chances and significant attention, revenue, and innovation.
Copyright infringement and legal issues can occur through stealing of
protected/patented pictures, sexual harassment cases through explicit
images and content.

Flickr Metrics/Revenue:
- Flickr Monthly Views- 1,883,508 Views
- Photo Streams 70,549,520
- Photos uploaded per moth 1 million
- Groups on flickr 2 million
- 122 million users
(H, 2016)

(Mcgee, 2013)

Consumer Analysis
Instagram:
Snapchat:
Points of Parity:
Both Instagram and the top competitor snapchat have photo
sharing features, live feeds, and stories. Both social media platforms use
ads frequently. Both are market leaders in a highly saturated, profitable
market. Both have great positioning with relevance, credibility and
differentiation. Both welcome endorsement, third party companies, and
other businesses to use as a means of profit, endorsement, brand
association, equity, etc. Both are in the maturity stage in the product life
cycle, and are looking to sustain their growth. Both have filter options to
modify photo looks.

Points of Difference:
Instagram photos are permanent, where as snapchat are not.
Filters on Instagram are used for lighting and colour modification purposes,
while snapchats has a variety of entertaining filters. Instagram
conversations on direct messaging are saved automatically, where on
snapchat the user has to manually to do that function In order to view it
later. Instagram is used for sharing content, while snapchat is sharing short
term videos and messages. Snapchat has a live feed features of high
importance stories, while Instagram does not have this. Instagram is more
business friendly and accessible, as they can use hashtags to connect
trends, people, and ideas together very quickly while snapchat does not
posses this feature.

Target Market Analysis:

Demographic:
Instagrams demographics are targeted to those between 18-34 age
bracket. Instagram heavily markets towards females, and they make up 68%
of the usage. Majority of this age bracket are single, with the exception of
5% those who are married with young families. Most of these individuals are
young professionals, who have a high amount of disposable income and
purchasing power. Many brands have taken key interest in the female
demographic who on average tend to post more then the male counterpart.
(Smith, 2014)

Geographic:
Instagram is accessible in every single country around the world
through internet access. The Instagram headquarters are located in
California in the United Sates for their base of operations and the company
and brand is on a global scale. Instagram uses a universal message rather
then tailor to each specific country on its needs/wants.

Psychographic:
The majority of Instagram users have highly stimulating lifestyles, that
love adventure and want to share that with friends family and peers through
Instagram. This can include a wide array of lifestyles such as traveling,
outdoor activities, art, music etc. Many users require immediate attention
and stimuli in order to retain messages and do research based upon what is
presented to them. Instagram tailors to these lifestyles through aggressive
advertising of traveling, art, music to that target market to increase their
brand loyalty, resonance, image and equity.

Behavioural:
A large portion of the Instagram base, is highly likely to have spending
patterns relating to what product is trendy or has a huge interest. Opinion
leaders on Instagram aid in the purchasing pattern of Instagram users, who
will buy it solely off of popularity and relevance. Unless influenced otherwise
by persuasive advertising, marketing, word of mouth communication these
individuals take a routine approach to Instagram affiliated purchases as there
is very few advertisements for the extensive approach.

Brand Associations:
Instagram has a very fast growing brand association in the minds of
the consumers. Theyre able to obtain this through their clever name
reflecting on instantly take a photo and uploading it, word of mouth publicity
through opinion leaders, celebrities, and others users that it is a positive
social trend that everyone should be using. Instagram has been very
effective in brand loyalty and equity as when as the slight mention of any
social media platform Instagram is generally the first to come to mind
amongst people. The Instagram brand is well thought of as quick,
accessible, entertaining and connecting. The brand has successfully been
able to penetrate consumer minds in a positive manner on a global scale
through their partnerships, endorsements. The service that Instagram
provides very well is through influential marketers using Instagram, to
further persuade an perception about the brand and also through hashtags
directing right to businesses and third part companies affiliated with
Instagram.

Perceptions Against Competitors:

Many consumers believe that Instagram is superior against its
competition of snapchat, Pinterest and flicker. Instagram is leading in market
share, sales, revenue, growth and has key marketing initiatives through
advertising, word to mouth channel, opinion leaders, and media outlets that
created high brand loyalty, equity, and resonance. Although the primary
competitor snapchat does have a good image, equity, and resonance, it is
not to the level of Instagrams as Instagram highlights their points of
difference much clearer than snapchat and does not have other strong
brands connected with them like Instagram has through Facebook another
big name in social media.