If a picture says a thousand words, Instagram has found the key to get users talking. With over 50 million users and 5 million more joining every week, the photo application has individuals snapping and sharing images across the world. Instagram has taken social media by storm becoming a viral platform among consumers and a valuable tool in the business community.
Instagram is a free application available for mobile devices that connects users through the world of photography. To start sharing, you can select the camera button to upload an image already saved to your device or choose take a new photo directly through the app. Instagram’s 17 filters then appear at the bottom of the screen, each adding different digital effects that you can choose from to enhance and stylize your image. There are also tools to add a border to your image and to blur parts of the picture as a way to alter focus. When you are finished editing, the photo is shared on Instagram’s network as well as on any of the other social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and Foursquare.
Personal Use. Instagram inspires the photographer and artist in all of us. Whether taking a picture of your morning coffee or of the headlines in the evening news, people are flocking to Instagram to post from all aspects of their lives. The application puts photo editing and sharing tools at the palm of the hand, providing a fun, interactive way for you to show what’s going on in your life in real time. Unlike Facebook and Twitter that rely more on text, Instagram provides a visual method of communication that makes it quick and easy for you to express yourself and interact with your social communities.
The Business Filter. Although Instagram’s origins are as a personal-based platform, many businesses are turning to the app to enhance their photos and interact with audiences in a new outlet. Companies in the food and beverage, fashion, and travel industries have quickly taken to Instagram as the visual nature of their work lends well to the photo sharing network. Starbucks, General Electric, and Southwest Airlines have each built successful Instagram accounts by sharing images targeted to their audiences and exposing their followers to behind the scenes events. This practice is helping many companies build brand awareness and increase user engagement while ultimately giving their business a ‘consumer face.’
Online Impact. According to Michael Downing, founder and CEO of the social video service Tout, Instagram’s popularity represents “a huge endorsement to the shift of the visual web and visual conversation in a social media framework.” Consumers are no longer satisfied with the 140 character limit of Twitter and instead are trending toward the use of pictures to update their social communities. The visual strategy offers an engaging, interactive method of communication that is easy for users to consume. Each time an Instagram photo is shared across web-based social networks like Facebook and Twitter, the app’s impact on the web grows stronger. Instagram’s viral presence is a strong indication that the web may be moving toward a much more visual communication strategy.
Instagram was acquired by Facebook in April 2012 for approximately $1 billion. This figure strongly represents the value and popularity of the network but fails to convey what the future holds for the app. While Facebook says Instagram will be managed as a separate service, rumors of the app being monetized in the near future are raising concern among users. Regardless of what the future may bring, individuals and businesses today agree that Instagram is a powerful storytelling tool helping to share experiences and develop visual engagement.
