Instagram | SocialWayne.com by Wayne Sutton

Posts Tagged ‘instagram’

Posted on August 30, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

8 websites to help you create an instagram online profile

Instagram is one of those little startups that could. I’ve been blogging about Instagram since I fell in love with the app when they first launched. Now with over seven million users instagram is living up hype of what I call the new twitter and with the recent rumors that Facebook tried to buy Instagram the photo sharing startup only has one way to go and that is up. With a rapid user growth, an API that developers are building new mashups with and a list of growing brands such as Chevy, Playboy, National Geographic and ABCNews posting photos in the instagram app it’s hard to believe that instagram is still just an iPhone app. The instagram team has said an Android app is on the way but no date has been announced yet.

The other day I was editing my google+ profile and I wanted to add a public link to my instagram photos and with instagram being only an iPhone app I had to turn to one of the websites built on the instagram API. There’s a few good ones but some require instagram users to login to see your photos. I wanted a site that would show my instagram photos in a public stream even if someone doesn’t have an instagram account. Instagram public profiles is something I’m sure the team will launch one day but right now they’re focused on mobile, which is a smart move. Below is a list of sites that allow you to create an Instagram public online profile or see your Instagram stats. I decided to go with Webstagram and you can see my webstagram instagram profile here: http://web.stagram.com/n/waynesutton/

HatTip – Paul Ford for items 1-4 via his Instagram Online post.

What Instagram site do you use to show your photos online?

CrunchBase Information

Instagram

Information provided by CrunchBase

Posted on June 19, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

What Photo Sharing App Should You Use? – infographic

via TechCrunch

What Photo Sharing App Should You Use?.

Posted on May 16, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

With 3.75 million users Instagram is the new Twitter

Today one of my favorite iPhone apps updated to version 1.7. That app was Instagram. I’ve been a fan of the simple photo-sharing app that allows you add a simple filter and share it with the Instagram community and your social graph for a while and with the new features it just secured its place as the new twitter. For me at least.

New in version Instagram version 1.7 are the following:
- Grid View for Profile Pages
- Optional Bio Field in Profiles
- Manage which push notifications you receive (on Edit Profile screen)
- Choose Profile Picture from Facebook & Twitter
- Stability Improvements for iOS 4.1
- Bug Fixes & Speed Improvements for Older Phones

Why is Instagram the new Twitter? For a few reasons. Instagram started as only supporting one mobile platform, the iPhone but via their newly announced API have allowed developers to create a desktop app and other mobile mashups such as Pic A Fight, the same way Twitter started. Also Instagram has connected me in a new visual way with new friends and old ones. Now I can not only have a conversation but see what my friends are seeing and have conversations about what they experiencing. If you’re looking for the whole follower numbers race, #hashtag support and with version 1.7 profile pages, Instagram is more like Twitter but all within a mobile app. The saying on instagram is not follow me but “hey, check out my photos!”.

Maybe I’m thinking to closed minded comparing Instagram to twitter but the similarities are there. I read recently that the instagram team didn’t look at the app as a photo sharing app but as a media application or something like that. Looking at the big picture I can understand what they’re aming for. Not Twitter or even Facebook but something better based off of experiences of mobile content from their users. I believe Path has the same goal as well. When you think about it, photos is what help Facebook reach 500 million accounts. Good luck to both Path and Instagram.

CrunchBase Information

Instagram

Information provided by CrunchBase

More post on Instagram
How brands can use Instagram and other mobile photo sharing applications today for customer engagement
The 7 most popular photos on Instagram, there’s more than lol cats!
Instagram now supports hashtags and launches Brisk Pics SXSW contest
On Thanksgiving Instagram is all about the Turkeys! 9 Thanksgiving Day Turkey photos on Instagram
Will Instagram become the next big mobile social network or just one awesome photo sharing app?

What is your favorite mobile photo or video sharing application and why?

Posted on January 27, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

Instagram now supports hashtags and launches Brisk Pics SXSW contest

instagram

Instagram one of my favorite iPhone apps released version 1.1 today with support for hashtags also known as topics, and the ability to manage and delete your own comments. With the support for hashtags comes new partnerships and promotions such as Charity: Water – #charitywater, NPR – #love & #hate, Photojojo – #winphotowin, @joshjohnson – #jjchallenge, and Brisk Iced Tea – #briskpic,

As SXSW nears, some have predicted that Instagram would be one of the breakout apps on Quora and with the Brisk Iced Tea – #briskpic hashtag Instagram promotion, users who post a photo on instagram and tweet it out will have a chance to be one of 4000 photos to appear on a Brisk can for SXSW. You can find more about the SXSW Instagram Brisk Iced Tea contest on http://briskpic.com

It seems as though brands are starting to use instagram as I predicted in this post: How brands can use Instagram and other mobile photo sharing applications today for customer engagement

Do you use Instagram? What are your thoughts on the SXSW Instagram Brisk Iced Tea contest?

Posted on December 1, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

How brands can use Instagram and other mobile photo sharing applications today for customer engagement

The saying is a photo is worth a thousand words and if that is the case books are being published in popular mobile sharing applications such as Instagram, Path, picplz, Burstn, Treehouse and more. Stories and experiences are being shared by uploading photos and new mobile social networking communities are being formed. Yesterday I posted an overview of Instagram and how Instagram lands its first brand partner the National Geographic. While the popularity of mobile photo sharing apps seems to be growing, I believe we will see more brands use photo sharing applications as another tool to engage with customers or gain new customers or as another marketing channel.

While more open photos sharing apps like Instagram, picplz and Burstn continue to gain users, another sad but inevitable trend we may start seeing is more users trying to increase their followers and treating photo sharing apps like another Twitter or social networking site. Just yesterday someone was searching “how to get more followers on Instagram” and landed on this site. Gaining more followers at this point just means more people will see your photos but soon as more brands partner with photo sharing applications to offer incentives for let’s say, best photo or a caption contest the race to get more followers on photo sharing apps could start.

With the rumors around how many users Instagram has and the news around Path and picplz VC funding, it will be curious to see what is next for photo sharing apps outside of multiple platforms support (Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile 7, iPad and Tablets). Will photo sharing apps create dashboard for users and brands to see analytics on photos? Will photo sharing applications create APIs for other services to pull in photos? Will leaderboards be created from photo sharing applications like Twitter had that lead to its early success?

Regardless, not just iPhone users although Instagram is said to have one million iPhone users alone, but it seems mobile phone users are joining photo sharing apps and uploading thousands of photos. The only thing left now is monetization, brands and agencies start seeing opportunities to use photo sharing apps as a way to increase customer engagement or for marketing and when they do…. please do not call it social media.

Until then, here are few ways brands can use Instagram and other mobile photo sharing applications for marketing or customer engagement.

1. Sell Cat food!

Really… do not laugh, Instagram is full of cat and other animal photos. I’m not a big animal person and not a fan of ads but a brands could have “show us your cat” and pick the winning photo for free cat food for the month. They would have to follow the brand on Instagram to win. Then the brands could reply to announce the winner in the comments.

2. The same could be said for diapers.

There are a lot of baby photos being uploaded.

3. Caption Contest.

4. For Questions and Answers:

What is your favorite artist or What CD should you buy?

5. Product placement

6. Show us your best photo of our location

7. Book Cover feedback

8. At conferences, find the exhibit booth with xzy and take a picture

9. Photographers can show there work.

10. Holiday photo tagging.

Ex: Show us your Christmas Tress

So far I have seen photos being uploaded of brands such as Coca-Cola, Hershey’s, Old Spice, Staples, McDonald’s, and various energy drinks. For brands and agencies, what is one of first tips we said in social media class 101? Participate where customers are talking about your brand online. As for photo sharing applications, it’s participate where people are posting photos about your brand in mobile applications.