With the amount of time people spend surfing through social media feeds on their phones, it only makes sense that businesses large and small take advantage of advertising on these platforms. With this in mind, I went to both Twitter and Instagram, to research their use of ads in the feed.
What I found was really interesting. Twitter and Instagram, as different as they are, used very similar techniques. The advertisements were made to look like regular posts on the app, carefully blending in with everything around it. There were links to click in two ways; the actual post and the profile making the post. They both were marked as either 'promoted,' or 'sponsored,' and had brief text explaining whatever was being advertised.
The only difference I came across, was the frequency of these ads. On Twitter, it would vary widely, from having ads every five posts, to every thirteen. Instagram, however, was quite consistent. Every ad I ran across when scrolling through, was between four and six regular posts apart.
Having these types of ads is likely hugely beneficial to who is putting them there, as annoying as they can be for social media users. When they blend in, and happen frequently, people may click more often.
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