A quick overview of InstagramA quick overview of InstagramA quick overview of InstagramA quick overview of Instagram

Blog Post Date: September 10th, 2012

Category: Social Media

Author: Ulrika Hedlund

Source: http://www.businessproductivity.com/ a-quick-overview-of-instagram

Last week, September 6th, Instagram was officially welcomed to

Facebook. This means that Instagram’s 16 employees (yes, that’s

correct, they are only 16) will be moving to Facebook’s

headquarters in Menlo Park. The acquisition, that was announced

back in April, has been pending the Federal Trade Commission’s

approval. The final price tag for Instagram ended up at 735 million

dollars - not the initial 1 billion due to Facebook’s fluctuating stock

price. A lot has been written about Instagram since the initial acquisition announcement in

April, but if you are one of those who aren’t a hundred percent sure of what it is, I thought I

would use this week’s blog article to give you a quick Instagram overview. This way you

won’t feel like a fool when your twelve year old niece asks you if she can post a picture of

you on her Instagram.

What is InstagramWhat is InstagramWhat is InstagramWhat is Instagram? ? ? ? Judging from the price tag you would assume that Instagram is an extremely sophisticated,

genius application that meets people’s various needs. The truth is that Instagram is

exceptionally simple. It’s an application for your mobile phone that enables you to edit

pictures you have taken with your mobile phone camera using built in filters and share

them with others. If you have an Instagram account you can tag pictures, rate and

comment on other people’s pictures and follow other users. If you want to see how

Instagram works without downloading, installing and creating an account yourself, you

can watch this YouTube demonstration of Instagram.

InstaInstaInstaInstagram backgroundgram backgroundgram backgroundgram background The name “Instagram” is a combination of the words instant

and telegram. Instagram was founded by two Stanford

graduates, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and launched in

October 2010. Initially it was only available for the iPhone,

but in April 2012 Instagram became available for Google

Android phones as well. Instagram became instantly popular.

After just a few months they had over one million users from

all over the world. In July 2012, Instagram had over 80

million users with 4 billion photos uploaded, and last week

Instagram announced that they have passed the 5 billion

photos mark.

Who can see Who can see Who can see Who can see Instagram photos? Instagram photos? Instagram photos? Instagram photos? To be part of the Instagram “community” you need to have an Instagram account. You can

sign up for one using the Instagram app which is available for iPhones (can also be installed

on iPads) and Google Android phones. By default your account is public, meaning that

anyone can see your photos. You can select to have a private account in which case users

need to be approved by you before they can see your photos. Even if you don’t have an

Instagram account you can view Instagram photos on your PC using a number of web sites.

One example is Gramfeed. Here you can look at photos that are currently popular or search

for photos containing specific hashtags. Other web sites for viewing Instagram photos

include Instagrid, Webstagram, INK361, Instagreat and Photogram.co. To get full access to

user photos you need to have an Instagram account, but you can still see popular photos

and do searches on photo tags without an account using some of these web sites.

Integration with other social networksIntegration with other social networksIntegration with other social networksIntegration with other social networks Instagram integrates with other social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and

Foursquare. This means that you can post your Instagram photos directly to other social

platforms so that more users can see your photos. If you add a location to your photograph

you can post your photo to the location based social network Foursquare. (To learn more

about social networks read the blog article “Making sense of the Social Networking

Jungle”.)

How How How How can can can can you you you you use Instagramuse Instagramuse Instagramuse Instagram as a business? as a business? as a business? as a business? Even though Instagram is primarily intended for personal use, sharing photographs with

your friends and family, Instagram, just like other social networks is being successfully used

by some businesses to promote their brand and their products. According to a study by

SimplyMeasured in August 2012, 40% of the leading brands are active on Instagram. Big

brands like Red Bull, Starbucks and Burberry have hundreds of thousands of followers each.

In 2011 Ford successfully used Instagram

to promote their Ford Fiesta. They

launched a photo competition called

“#Fiestagram Photo Competition” where

users were asked to take pictures

showing off a particular feature or

technology found on the Ford Fiesta.

Ford organized the Fiesta's features into

six categories: #Starting, #Hidden,

#Listening, #Entry, #Music, and #Shapes.

Each category was given its own week.

Users uploaded their pictures tagging

them with #fiestagram and the hashtag

for the week. A team of judges selected

the winner for each week and at the end

of the competition, the overall winner was given a brand new Ford Fiesta.

Is Business Productivity using Instagram? Is Business Productivity using Instagram? Is Business Productivity using Instagram? Is Business Productivity using Instagram? Currently Instagram isn’t available for the Windows mobile platform so I can’t download

Instagram to my phone. I have downloaded Instagram to my iPad so that I can follow

others, but I haven’t shared any pictures myself yet. Now that Instagram is a part of

Facebook I’m hoping that they will get more development resources and that they will be

able to develop a good PC app as well as a mobile app for the Windows mobile platform.

When it becomes available I’ll be sure to let you know how you can follow us on Instagram.