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Impact of Instagram among Young Adults
Introduction
Social media provides marketing and advertising opportunities for young adults despite the impact cyber bullying and addiction have on young adults. The use of social media has increased in recent years due to advancements in technology. There is an ongoing debate as to whether social media is helpful or destructive to young adults. Some people argue that social media has wasted people’s time through addiction, negative mental health effects, false news, and cyberbullying. Others believe that social media has impacted the world in a positive way. The truth is, social media has done more harm than good to the world. A good example is Instagram. Instagram has revolutionized the manner in which young adults market their products and conduct business.
Negative Effects of Instagram
First of all, there are many people who are against the use of social media because social media has many disadvantages. Instagram has been a popular app among many young adults, especially after its acquisition by Facebook in 2012. Some people have made claims that there has been an increased addiction to Instagram among many young people. There are certain behaviors that show this. They include spending a lot of time thinking about Instagram or planning to use Instagram, feeling the urge to use Instagram more and more, using Instagram to forget about personal problems, trying to reduce the use of Instagram with little or no success, becoming restless or troubled in situations where one cannot use Instagram, and using Instagram so much that it begins to negatively impact school or work life. In extreme cases, Hawi & Samaha (5) proposed that these behaviors can be devastating. Studies have shown that withdrawal is a common indicator of addiction to Instagram. Some young adults are so addicted to Instagram that they stay glued to their phones for hours. They withdraw from their friends and families because they spend a lot of time on Instagram. This affects their relationships with their friends and families. Addiction to Instagram by young adults has negative effects on their mental health. When the use of Instagram is restricted for some reason, young adults tend to be more moody than usual. According to Hou, Xiong and Jiang (8), some young adults become stressed and emotionally unstable when they are excessively involved in Instagram issues. A study conducted by Harvard University Haynes (17) found that interacting successfully with others on Instagram causes the brain to produce dopamine, a “happiness” hormone that is released when we chew tasty food in the mouth, during sex, and after exercising. When young adults are unable to use Instagram for some reason, they miss the kind of “high” as a result of dopamine release due to successful social interaction on Instagram. Increased use of Instagram among young adults makes them develop an uncontrollable urge to constantly log in to Instagram, and spending more time and effort to keep their accounts active and engaging. In some cases, this causes young adults to lose focus on more important things in life by spending less time on the things that matter. For some young adults, addiction to Instagram can be compared to addiction to a drug. Some of them manage to recover from the addiction to Instagram and actually stop using Instagram for some time. They then relapse to their addiction and their struggle continues. The overall outcome becomes a cyclic process where the victims struggle in vain.
Secondly, the use of Instagram exposes young adults to a lot of trolling, aggression and hostility from other people. This comes in various ways such as offensive name-calling, spreading of false rumors, receiving explicit messages they didn’t ask for, constant asking of who they are, what they are doing, and who they are with by someone other than a parent, physical threats, and having explicit images and videos shared without their consent. Others are bullied because of their appearance, interests or hobbies, high grades, low grades, amount of household income, because a friend or family member is being bullied, masculinity or femininity, family issues made public, disability, race, cultural identity, religion, sexuality, and gender identity or expression. All this amounts to cyber bullying. Research conducted by (Ditch the Label (26) shows that Instagram is the worst social media platform when it comes to cyber bullying. 42% of young adults who responded said that they had been cyber bullied on Instagram. The problem is that over time, people have accepted and made cyber bullying a normal thing. People even encourage cyber bullies because they view it as something to joke and laugh about while in a real sense it is deeply hurting the victims. This encourages bullies on Instagram to continue bullying others to get the attention they receive when they bully others. Since Instagram is an online platform, users do not see each other face to face. According to Craig, Boniel-Nissim & King (104) the issue occurs because they know that cyber bullying others will have no consequences. Some cyber bullies on Instagram use pseudo accounts to bully others. In the worst-case scenario, a bully will simply delete the account. Many young adults do not report when they are bullied on Instagram. However, some of them are courageous enough to seek help from friends, family members, counselors, and Instagram support. Young adults who experience cyber bullying on Instagram suffer from depression. This is exhibited in irregular sleep patterns, being moody, increased irritability, and frequent anger. A research by Al-Deen & Hendricks (54) indicated that young victims of cyber bullying may also develop social anxiety, have suicidal thoughts, self-harm, skip class, develop anti-social behaviors, develop eating disorders, run away from home, or abuse alcohol and other drugs to deal with the cyber bullying. Some even delete their Instagram account and stop using social media completely. There are longer-lasting effects of cyber bullying on the victims. They include lowering of self-esteem. It is important for everyone to be confident about themselves. This makes us feel good in doing what we do every day. For some people, confidence takes a lot of time to build. When that confidence is destroyed by bullies on Instagram, it is usually hard to rebuild it. Therefore, a consistent safeguard of self from losing esteem is always important.
Marketing Opportunities on Instagram for Young Adults
One of the reasons why social media should be considered beneficial for young adults is that social media makes more marketing opportunities on Instagram for young adults. Young adults with their own businesses can use Instagram to promote their businesses. There is a lot of purchasing power on Instagram. Instagram has more than 1 billion users every month. A third of these users have used Instagram to purchase various things. Although Facebook has more users than Instagram, content posted on Instagram will get more engagements than content posted on Facebook. This shows that there are a lot of customers on Instagram. Young adults can use Instagram as a free advertising platform. Creating an Instagram account is absolutely free. Users can also create a business profile separate from the personal profile. Apart from having a physical market for products, Instagram provides young adults with businesses with an online market where they can sell their products. Instagram provides young adults with filters so that they can advertise their products to their desired market. Such filters include age, location, and interests. One may need to pay someone to run an Instagram account to promote their products or a photographer to take quality photos and videos of products, but using Instagram is totally free. One does not need to pay any subscription fees to sell or buy anything on Instagram. The ease of use hence promotes user preference at any time.
Instagram enables young adults to add visual appeal to the products they advertise. Instagram allows users to post photos and videos alongside a text. The text is not mandatory. Young adults can post photos and videos of their products along with advertising texts to appeal to potential customers to buy their products. Good photography skills can help young adults go a long way in marketing their products. Instagram provides photo editing features, tools and filters to make produce high quality photos. Users can also create collages on Instagram. Videos can be used to show customers how to use various products, send greetings or personal messages to existing and potential customers, show what happens behind the scenes, send new product announcements, and give information about certain products. Photos and videos are important in advertising of products because people are likely to remember 80% of what they see. This means that they will consciously or subconsciously remember adverts on Instagram that had photos and videos.
Through Instagram, young adults are able to interact and engage directly with their customers. Customers post reviews on certain products. Young adults can also post questions regarding their products and feedback on how to improve them. This provides young adults with an opportunity to know what the tastes and preferences of their customers are. They are able to tailor their business strategies to suit their customers’ tastes and preferences. Feedback from customers on Instagram helps young adults grow their businesses in a manner that seems to be the most profitable. Instagram allows users to share their content to other social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. This allows young adults to advertise their products to different social media platforms at the same time. This helps to save time and increases the visibility of their products to wider, untapped markets.
Instagram adds a casual appeal to advertising compared to normal advertising. Unlike normal advertising, advertising on Instagram gives young adults an opportunity to show their customers a side of their business that exists but is not seen by the customers. This can be done by posting photos and videos of what happens behind the scenes, how customers are served, day to day running of the business, and staff involved in running of the business. This makes existing and potential customers feel close to the business. Chen (27) reported that Instagram acts as a platform where young adults can sell their products. The app allows users to buy goods directly. It is a convenient way of buying various products. Young adults can sell all types of products on Instagram. It does not matter whether a young adult has a small or big business. All types of businesses can be conducted on Instagram. Many people have hence adopted the platform for many business transactions.
Young adults can measure the success of their businesses using analytics on Instagram. Analytics can enable them to find out which campaigns bring the most traffic and conversations, determine where the best customers are located, learn what people are searching for, visualize what people click on the most, uncover top content, identify the worst performing products, and plan the appropriate marketing strategy. Instagram stories are a good way that young adults can use to promote their businesses. The stories automatically disappear after twenty four hours. They can create stories that comprise of testimonials from customers, various services offered, and answers to frequently asked questions. The stories have a “Swipe Up” feature that young adults can use to create links that take a user to another universal resource location that gives more information about the product being advertised. The links can also direct users to where they can purchase the products. To ensure the effectiveness of Instagram stories, quality images or videos should be used. The seller must be creative enough to create photos or videos that grab the attention of users and entice them to swipe up. Young adults can also use Instagram stories to drive brand and product awareness, announce sales or special events, start a public conversation, start a personal conversation, and retarget customers. Retargeting helps to target a specific audience and deliver tailored value, and push leads through the funnel faster.
Young adults can also pay Instagram to have their products advertised via ads. Ads increase the visibility of the products to a wider audience. People say that they do not like ads but the reality is that it is impossible to ignore them. Ads increase the traffic conversion rate. An ad is likely to have a high conversion rate if it has a captivating call to action line that encourages an Instagram user to click on the ad. Ads also provide young adults with an opportunity to get immediate feedback from customers. This can be done via surveys or polls.
The direct messaging feature on Instagram known as Instagram Direct can be a very useful tool for marketing by young adults, not just personal conversations. The feature enables a user to send a message to up to 15 selected users at the same time. Only the selected users will be able to view the message. The feature may be used to give instructions customers who have a problem using a certain product. It may also be used to give personalized discounts to customers. According to De Veirman, Cauberghe & Hudders (809), young adults can also pay celebrities and influencers with many followers to post products on their accounts so that they can reach the celebrity’s or influencer’s followers. This will help to reach the target audience. For instance, someone willing to advertise sports equipment may pay an athlete to advertise their products. The overall process makes it easier for use and hence great preference across many groups.
Conclusion
Those who argue against the use of social media because it has wasted people’s time through addiction, effect on mental health, false news, and cyber bullying are blind to the benefits of social media. This paper has used Instagram as an example. It has been clearly demonstrated that Instagram provides marketing and advertising opportunities for young adults despite the impact cyber bullying and addiction have on young adults. The advantages of the use of social media by young adults outweigh the disadvantages. The argument that young adults should keep off social media because of addiction, false news, and cyber bullying is therefore invalid.
Works Cited
Al-Deen, Hana Noor and John Allen Hendricks. Social Media: Usage and Impact. Plymouth: Lexington Books, 2012.
Chen, Huan. “College-Aged Young Consumers’ Perception of Social Media Marketing: The Story of Instagram.” Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising (2018): 22-36.
Craig, Wendy, et al. “Social Media Use and Cyber-Bullying: A Cross-National Analysis of Young People in 42 Countries.” Journal of Adolescent Health (2020): 100-108.
De Veirman, Marijke, Veroline Cauberghe and Liselot Hudders. “Marketing Through Instagram Influencers: The Impact of Number of Followers and Product Divergence on Brand Attitude.” International Journal of Advertising (2016): 798-828.
Ditch the Label. The Annual Bullying Survey. Brighton: Ditch the Label, 2017.
Hawi, S. Nazir and Maya Samaha. “The Relations Among Social Media Addiction, Self-Esteem, and Life Satisfaction in University Students.” Social Science Computer Review (2016): 1-11.
Haynes, Trevor. Dopamine, Smartphones & You: A Battle for Your Time. 1 May 2018. <http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/dopamine-smartphones-battle-time/>.
Hou, Yubo, et al. “Social Media Addiction: Its Impact, Mediation, and Intervention.” Journal of Psychological Research on Cyberspace (2019): 1-17.
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