Instagram is a free photo-sharing application for Apple iOS and Android platforms, which allows users to share photos and connect with another Instagram users from all around the world. Today, Instagram turned out to be one of the most popular social networks with 100 million members as of September 11th 2012. According to the International Business Times website, the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that “[Instagram] just crossed 100 million users” (Zuckerberg, 2012).
Playing with colors is fun! Users are able to edit their photos by applying different types of filters right before every single photo is uploaded. Majority of Instagramers enjoy browsing through another user’s profile because of one simple aspect = curiosity. From my prospective, Instagram became enormously popular because it is a free social network that allows users to browse through any ‘public’ profile. Instagram is the latest trend!
Internet Marketing and Instagram are well connected due to two main reasons; it is rapidly growing with over 100 million users and marketing by uploading photos is commonly very effective as it allows potential customers to see the company’s product or service. According to Business 2 Community webpage, Instagram gives companies and professionals “the opportunity to visualize their product and to promote it to a fast-growing base of users” (Josue, 2012). Internet Marketing does not only focus on known companies. This application helps many unknown companies and individuals to get recognized because anyone can search anyone (if not private). For instance, lets say that I start making jewelry. By uploading photos of my home made jewelry and hash tagging them (#jewelry), my followers will instantly see my products and anyone who will be searching ‘jewelry’ is likely to see it as well. If my jewelry production becomes demanded, I can start selling my products online and so on. In this case, this social network can also be seen as an advertising network.
Instagram is a great choice for entrepreneurs that are looking for a cheap/expense free way to share their products or services. One has to keep in mind that when promoting over this photo sharing application, not everyone is able to access it due to the absence of Internet or smartphones. In many developing countries, people do not have Internet connection due to their financial status, therefore, advertising a product/service with the target on these citizens would be more appropriate by marketing through the newspapers, billboards and public locations.
There are many published articles on the Internet that are providing instructions and techniques on how to use Instagram for business purposes. I found an interesting and very helpful article called 4 Ways to Make Instagram Work for Your Small Business on Flowtown website, which very well explains the necessary steps.
When I am on my own Instagram account, I often go to the popular page and look for fashion photographs and fashion related users or companies. I am currently following one very popular company called Lola Shoetique (official website HERE, official webstagram ‘instagram’ HERE). This company sells female shoes ranging from flip-flops to heels and boots. I really like the way that Lola Shoetique presents the published photos. The colors in the photos are nicely combined and new photos are constantly updated at least three times a day. I do not really like that it does not include the price of the particular item, thus customer is ‘forced’ to go to their official website and search the price over there. This can turn to be a distraction as many websites, especially fashion based websites offer so many products that it is very difficult to find the particular item.
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