Acquisition Channel Opportunities: Instagram, Podcast Ads, TikTok

Some of the most popular social networks are bigger than you think. Also, podcast ads work (but we don't know for how long). Let's dive into this week's acquisition channel opportunities:

1. Did you know: Instagram now has 2 billion users

The big are getting bigger.

The news: According to a recent article by CNBC, Instagram has recently hit 2 billion monthly active users. The sources are anonymous Instagram employees.

When this happened: Instagram reached this figure about a week before Facebook changed its name to Meta. So around the middle of October.

The opportunity for founders: Nearly half of the population with internet access is now on Instagram. There's a decent chance that a portion of your target market is also on Instagram.

**Here's one approach **to identify them: Go to SparkToro and enter some keywords relevant to your niche. See the social accounts that people who use those keywords engage with. Are any of them on Instagram? If so, do they have a decent amount of followers?

If you answered yes to both questions, Instagram is most likely a channel woth considering.

2. Podcast ads work & more and more founders use them

The news: The Verge published an article about podcast ads and how they're still working) for different companies.

One example: Fume is a smoking cessation device. They went from spending $3,000 per month on podcast ads at the beginning of this year to between $25,000 and $30,000 by the end.

The Verge article focuses on how big brands are entering the podcast ads space and how that makes things hard for smaller players.

If you're familiar with the law of shitty click thoughts, your reaction to this will probably be; "Duh!". When more and more people start to use an acquisition channel, it's a good sign that the channel is working.

The opportunity: Podcast ads work. You can also track their performance using coupon codes. The Verge article outlined several difficulties that up-and-coming podcast advertisers are facing with. If you wanna make sure you're not one of them, try to make sure that you:

• Work directly with podcasters (so your ad stays as long as the show is live).
• Do more research so your find niche, up-and-growing podcasters that still don't charge an arm and a leg.
• If you start getting a postiive ROI, sign a contract so you don't get hit with unexpected price hikes as some of the businesses mentioned in the article.

3. TikTok keeps growing insanely fast

The news: Cloudflare recently published an article of the most popular domains of 2022.

The most popular domain of late 2021: TikTok. Google came in second.

Let that sink in.

Back in 2020 TikTok ranked only #7.

Another major market research company predicted that TikTok wil rank as the third largest social network in 2022. Instagram already ranks second with 2 billion users and Facebook is #1 with 2.91 billion people.

The opportunity for founders: As TikTok keep growing, more and more influencers will appear in digital niches that indie founders target. This is already happening in markets that target:

• developers
• marketers
• niche designers (such as logo designers)

This trend will likely continue in 2022, as we'll see more and more influencers in B2B or B2P (business-to-profession) niches. This will enable TikTok to be a viable acquisition channel for if you're a SaaS founder.