Instagram’s new Teen Accounts is a good thing for your business

Instagram recently announced a set of new safety measures for Teen Accounts designed to — in Instagram’s words — “reassure parents that teens are having safe experience”. It’s like they’ve given the platform a nice parental control filter to keep little Jimmy safe from the wild west of the internet. Good for Jimmy.

There’s not much literature out there yet about how these changes are going to affect advertising. So far, we know that teens will get notifications telling them to leave the app after 60 minutes each day, and sleep mode will be turned on between 10pm and 7am, muting notifications overnight and sending auto-replies to DMs.

But if you’re running a business on Instagram, here’s the million-dollar question: is this going to put a dent in your ad revenue? The short answer is no.

You might’ve heard talk of how these new changes will affect ad reach or profitability, but I’m telling you now: you’re going to be fine. Zuckerberg hasn’t pulled the rug out from under your feet, he’s just put a couple of safety nets in place.

So before you start doom-scrolling through another round of algorithm paranoia, let’s break down what these updates actually mean for you, and why they’re not worth losing sleep over.

Unless your business is built on selling acne cream or video game skins, Instagram’s new protections most likely won’t make a dent in your advertising. That’s because teenagers aren’t the ones with the credit card: they’re just whining for mum or dad to buy it for them.

If your ad strategy has been chucking spaghetti at the wall and hoping it sticks (aka letting Facebook’s AI figure out who to target), Instagram’s new changes might actually be your saving grace. Your ads are going to bypass the ‘broke teenager’ demo and zero in on the big spenders who are actually ready to buy.

By putting tighter privacy settings on Teen Accounts, Instagram is essentially trimming out a segment of the audience that’s rarely profitable. Your ads will automatically skip right over those under-16 users who aren’t likely to buy anything anyway.

Think of it as Instagram doing a bit of spring cleaning for you. They’re sweeping out the eyeballs that don’t convert, leaving your ads to focus on the people who actually matter. Your core audience is still intact, your ads are still working, and your bottom line is safe.

So rather than stressing about notifications coming in at odd hours or some marginal shifts in reach, see this for what it is: a chance to refine your audience and tighten up your ad strategy. The internet is always changing, but the fundamentals of smart advertising remain the same: get in front of the right people, and make your message count.

Remember: if your business is fully reliant on Instagram, Facebook, or any other social platform for success, you’re playing with fire. Yes, Instagram has an obscene amount of eyeballs on its platforms. But a business’ job is to shift those views from the news feed to something you own, like your website, email or SMS marketing list.

While email and SMS might sound about as exciting as a manila folder, they’re still around for a reason: they work. They’re the backbone of marketing that’s steady, dependable, and directly within your control. You need to build your own defences, grow your lists, and nurture your audience in spaces where you’re not at the mercy of algorithm changes or the latest platform updates.

In other words, don’t just rent the crowd. Own it.

Because at the end of the day, those owned channels are your most valuable assets — the ones that will keep bringing in the sales, no matter how many curveballs Zuckerberg wants to throw your way.

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