Instagram, What Is IT? Should Your Business be using it?

Insagram – with over 100 million active users every month, Instagram is a platform that businesses should not be ignoring. It boomed into popularity around 18 months ago and shows no sign of slowing down.

It allows users to upload (or take photos from its application) and then apply a filter to the image. It has now just introduced a video feature where users can take/upload short video’s and apply the same filters.

So what is a filter? A filter is an effect which you can apply to your image. They mainly change the colour of the image to make your photograph look more, for want of a better word ‘arty’. There are 20 standard filters which you can use, some with obvious names like ’inkwell’ which turns your image into more a black and white image. Others have names such as ‘Mayfair’, you can sample every filter on the image to see the effect before you upload it.

As mentioned in our previous blog, images and social media mix well together, remember our little fact that your brain understands an image 60,000 faster than text. Whether this has anything to do with Instagram almost instant success, I don’t know.

The app, and its interface, function and look very similar to twitter. Your home feed is a list of recent posts from people / businesses that you follow, the most recently uploaded being at the top. In fact, although I don’t think its Real Time function has quite matched Twitter yet, it is not far behind.

And just like twitter you can place a hash tag below each image to join in conversations for others to search and find your image.

Why I feel Instagram is only going to continue to grow and grow is that there are no language barriers, unlike Twitter. Its very easy to understand someone’s image not so easy to understand German if you don’t speak it.

Its quick and simple to show off your products, your location even behind the scenes at the office. With the Real Time feature people can post about events as when they are happening and join in the conversation using those ever increasing hash tags.

As you may, or may not, know Facebook bought Instagram and therefore you can now seamlessly link it to your Facebook profile.

And now videos have been thrown into the mix I feel Instagram is going to be as important to businesses and marketers as Facebook and Twitter. You can join in ‘conversations’ with a simple and beautiful image.

Now remember to bear in mind One Media Solutions as a SocialMedia Agency if you are thinking of outsourcing your Social Media needs. Even if you are just after some free advice we are always more than happy to help.