Socail Media Assessment B
By Yvonne Elbigawe 3859739,
Rebecca Cunningham 3925441, &
Katy McCormick 3886548
What is Instagram?
Instagram is a highly exciting, free app that allows users to take and upload photos to social
media websites such as Facebook and Twitter. A user captures photos with their mobile
phone and can use a variety of filters to change the visible look of the photo. When the
photo is uploaded to a social media website, a caption can be added to give a description of
the photo and the location of where the photo was taken is displayed.
Analysis of Instagram
Instagram allows its’ users to take fun, exciting photographs by adding filters that can turn
ordinary photos into interesting images. This technological advancement allows people
with no such photography knowledge to produce pictures that are to be admired, but what
does that mean for professional photographers?
Another view is that Instagram is just encouraging its users to take photos of themselves
and constantly be uploaded them to social media website for reassuring ‘likes’ and
attention. Furthermore there is the issue of concern, as the privacy and rights of the photos
that are uploaded to the app are limited. If a photo is added to the users profile, that user
does not officially own that photo and certain images can be reproduced and replicated for
advertising campaigns.
The history of Instagram
Instagram has gained vast popularity since its debut on the 16th of October 2010. The mobile
phone app was created in San Francisco, by the co-founder Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.
Systrom endeavoured to create a way that people could produce high quality photographs,
with professional looking effects on their mobile phones. Instagram proved its popularity as
of December of 2010; one million users were snapping photos using the app.
In April of 2012, Instagram held over 30 million registered users and was bought by
Facebook for a billion dollars in cash and stock. Facebook found great interest into the evergrowing popularity of Instagram and knew that it was important to own such a product that
held a vast interest with their Facebook users.
Instagram had discovered a mechanism that Facebook had not covered as in they allow
photos to be shared on Facebook, but have never produced a feature that can add filters to
the colours of the photos. This niche market that Instagram cracked, made Facebook
fiercely interested in and therefore led to their $1 billion purchase of the app.
Geographic Aspects
Instagram has grown to become a form of communication amongst its 30 million users by
providing a source of journalism explicitly expressed through photos taken with a
smartphone device.
Similarly, like other popular social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram frequently
updates its application by providing new features which users are able to take advantage of.
Recently, the application has introduced the feature of allowing users all over the globe to
explore new geographic regions.
This feature option is optional however most active accounts are utilizing the option of
providing location information in conjunction with the photo that they have taken.
Unlike Facebook, which shares information with peers that are known amongst each other,
Instagram will upload a photograph with the prime location, attached which acts as a form
of communication, publicity and gateway to acknowledge which places around the world
are yet to be discovered.
Although this may seem like an invasion of privacy for an Instagram user, Instagram will not
provide any addresses that could be sourced unlike Facebook which will publish the exact
time and place any even is happening.
Demographic Aspects
Instagram’s demographic has grown and become more mainstream as some of the most
popular images are ones scrutinized by profession photographers as they are claimed to be
violating Instagram’s main purpose.
For instance, when Instagram was first launched, the initial use was for those who had a
keen interest in photography of elements such as nature, people and animals whereby an
image can be enhanced without the use expensive equipment. Once the application became
popularized, such images become rare to source as they have been replaced with
personalized and reinvented blog spaces providing a form of fame, awareness and publicity
for average people. This transformation can be credited to the instant change in the
demographic whereby an online source (http://www.amzini.com/networks/Instagram/)
cites that overall, more women use the application consuming the 18-34 age bracket
whereas the 35-64 age bracket is occupied by men. Instagram’s user base is built up by
those who either have a small education or are completely uneducated however, the most
educated users are women. When exploring images on Instagram, certain images can be
associated with the age brackets in the demographic with respect to occurring trends,
memes and new forms of pop culture that are growing amongst an assortment of groups.
For instance, Instagram offers the opportunity for all of its 30 million active users to have
their images explored.
They do this by using a numeric system in conjunction with the amount of ‘followers’ an
individual has plus the amount of ‘likes’ a photo receives within a certain timeframe since
initial upload.
If an image receives enough ‘likes’ it is then displayed on Instagram’s ‘Popular Page’
whereby the image is on display for everyone to discover.
When discovering this popular page, the aforementioned trends are ones that seem of
interest to younger females that have little – zero photographic talent hence explaining the
growth of young female users.
Forms of Interaction on Instagram
There are many forms of interaction that can be used between users on Instagram. User’s
can choose to “follow” other users and therefore are able to view the user’s newly uploaded
photos on their webfeed. Users can choose to have their Instagram profiles on private,
where only users who they have accepted to follow, can view, like and comment on their
photos, and if the profile is not on private, then anyone and everyone are able to see their
content, like it and comment on it. By following a user, you are interacting with the other
user, and they may choose to follow you back.
Other interactions on Instagram include “liking” or “commenting” on a photo. Under each
photo there is a button for “liking” and “commenting” on the photo. When you like a photo
a white love heart appears on the screen to notify you that you have successfully liked it,
and a notification is sent to the photo’s owner.
By using hashtags on your photo you are also interacting, by associating your photos with
categories of other photos on Instagram.
When posting a photo on Instagram, users have the option to “share” the photo on their
Facebook, twitter, flickr and tumblr accounts as well as the option to email the photo to
someone. This allows users to post their filtered Instagram photos on other social media
sites for many more people to see.
When posting a photo, users can also choose to add the photo to “your photo map” and
name the location where it has been taken. This allows users to associate the name of the
place where the photo has been taken and allows other users to identify where your photos
have been taken on a map.
Novel Features of Instagram
The Instagram application works with iPhone, Andriod, Blackberry or Windows
7smartphones.
The main features of Instagram include the editing features used to enhance the photos
that are posted.
The digital filters that can be added to the photos are:
X-Pro II
Earlybird
Lo-fi
Sutro
Toaster
Brannan
Valencia
Inkwell
Walden
Hefe
Nashville
1977
Warm, saturated colour effect
Faded, yellow and beige effect
Blurred, yellow and green saturated
Sepia effect
High exposure
Low key, focus on grey and green
High contrast
Black and White filter
Washed-out colour
Fuzzed out effect , gold and yellow tones
Sharpened image, border
1970’s look filter
Lord Kelvin
Super saturated, scratchy look
Borders can be added to the photo by using the square icon at the top left hand corner of
the screen, and the circular icon at the bottom left of the screen is the LUX feature which
can be used to enhance the photo in a different light. By using the teardrop icon, you are
able to blur certain parts of your photo to put focus on another part.
The search engine feature on Instagram allows users to search for other users as well as
hashtags. This gives you the maximum opportunity to explore other photos posted on the
application. Users are also able to tag other users in their pictures so that the tagged users
are notified of the posting of the photo and are associated with the photo.
Differences to other kinds of Social Media
Instagram differs from other kinds of social media by having many more applications
available to further edit and enhance a users photos such as “Frametastic” to allow more
borders and putting more than one picture into the photo, or “Tweetgram” to choose
different backgrounds to post writing on.
Instagram also differs to other kinds of social media by allowing users to choose form a
range of different filters to edit their photos as well as other effects such as blurring and
focus, borders, and enhancing the photo using a LUX button.
These differnces, make Instagram unique and allow the posted photos that have been
filtered and enhanced to gain more attention than they would have got normally posted on
another social network site with no editing. When compared to other social media
networks, namely Facebook and Twitter, images posted on Instagram yield more
engagement.
The link below is an example of an active Instagram account which we made to demonstrate
the aspects mentioned above. The information we have researched in presented on the
social media application (Instagram) is also displayed throughout the active Instagram
account we have made.
http://web.stagram.com/n/acc3004/?vm=grid
References:
Heidi Cohen, 12th September 2012, 5 Instagram Tactics to Increase Social Media
Engagement, [ONLINE] Available at: http://heidicohen.com/5-instagram-tactics-to-increasesocial-media-engagement/ [Accessed 21 September 2012]
The Guardian, 2012, Guardian Syndication, [ONLINE] Available at:
http://syndication.guardian.co.uk/default.aspx. [Accessed 23 September 12].
Visually, 2012, Instagram: The timeline, [ONLINE] Available at: http://visual.ly/instagramtimeline. [Accessed 23 September 12].
Viralblog, 2012, Instagram timeline: An explosive history, [ONLINE] Available at:
http://www.viralblog.com/social-media/instagram-timeline-an-explosive-history/.
[Accessed 23 September 12].