“Bringing Best Tools To Express”
Sandeep Bhushan, Head of India GMS at Facebook, in an exclusive conversation with BW Businessworld’s Siddharth Shankar, talks about the impact of Covid-19 on the social media platform Instagram and upcoming trends in the domain. Edited excerpts:
We have seen people really getting onto Instagram during the lockdowns, but internally how has the Covid-19 impact been ?
For us, it’s been very exciting and very busy and really thanks to a lot of our teams that have kept not just the infrastructure going, but brought even new pieces. For example, Instagram REELS expansion. So, tremendous work done by the Instagram teams and also in terms of expression because wehad to move socially and digitally in the context of the lockdown.
With businesses going digital, what kind of traction has Instagram seen during the lockdown?
Businesses, of course, are a critical part of the Instagram ecosystem , nine out of ten Instagram users follow a business page. In India, we also know is a country where a bulk of small businesses don’t have their own websites. We hope to be able to therefore give them the presence so that engagement can start - customer knowledge, verification, validation can start.
Instagram has recently released a integrated messaging system where even Facebook is connected to Instagram. What is the idea behind this?
Our vision is that eventually we should all be able to access messaging in a single space. I don’t want to access multiple devices, multiple apps to get to the person or the people or the communities or the business I’m going to speak to. I will give you the WhatsApp example where even though WhatsApp sits outside, but I can click on a piece of communication on Instagram or Facebook and continue the conversation in WhatsApp. Thus, there are multiple ways, but as friction-free as possible, messaging (facility) for both communities and businesses.
Today, Instagram is a part of the marketing mix of all businesses. Going forward what new things can we expect, from Instagram in terms of marketing, providing tools and new platforms?
The role Instagram plays is the role any medium should play when it comes to business, which is either to drive sales or salience, which let’s say across the funnel and within that, the tools today allow each of these now exists. Fundamentally every piece of investment on Instagram, by a business, whether in terms of time or money has to lead to business run. Today you can do Instagram communication at the level of a pin code; in the Covvid-19 era that is very relevant because access to supply chains is a challenge and you don’t want communication outside of where you can deliver your product in the first place. Therefore, multiple tools continue to help businesses, whether for awareness or generating immediate revenue.
What are the major developments on the way from Instagram in the days and months ahead?
Whatever is the latest way to express and whatever technology enables, Instagram will be there to make it even better in the easiest way possible. One observation is the expression is becoming more and more immersive. So for example, you can imagine Augmented Reality filters showing up more and more both commercially and non-commercially.
Therefore, brands today for unveiling is able to do a full three 60 unboxing, unboxing being so critical to tech category. We’re able to do that with all the tools that are currently available.
I would certainly urge all businesses to ask the question of the end metric, and look for the researchers you can mount on the platform, to understand impact of a particular communication. For example, working with partners such as Nielsen to measure impact on sales, even in the retail store, not just online. Those tools are now coming in greater and greater abundance.
Therefore, both expression continues to get better and measurement of outcomes on the business side becomes better.
How are you handling the fake news and the content related issues that come up on Instagram platform?
Instagram actually has put out a very clear manifesto to be the safest place on the internet. And, the way we think about it is that expression can be engaging and respectful. Therefore, we follow two broad tenants.
One is community standards — if you see something that’s not acceptable in your assessment as an individual, you can report it, and we will run it past the community standards play. The second is the piece of the news itself.
We work with third-party fact checking partners who ceck for news that may not be authentic.
New specific tech features coming to Instagram in the future?
Well, the journey continues. Whatever is the best way to express at any point of time will come in. Both in terms of bringing new tools and making current tools better or making them more central, as you see in the case of reels, is what Instagram has delivered. So, continuing improvement, all the time is really, what you should expect.
