CINCINNATI -- I think most people have heard of Instagram by now, especially since the photo editing and sharing service was recently acquired by Facebook.  There are a lot of similarities to other social networks.  You can follow other people, and they can follow you as well.  You can snap pictures to update your friends and one of the really cool features is a filter feature to transform the look and feel of the pics.  You can geo-tag the location on your Photo Map, share it to Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook, and view the most popular photos.

“With 100 million (and counting) registered users on Instagram and 5 billion photos shared, brands are clamoring to find new ways to engage with users on — not to mention monetize – the new social media platform. This comes in many forms, from companies creating a new Instagram persona to them integrating the photo stream site onto their actual company websites. Urban Outfitters owned Free People, for example, uses Instagrammers who post shots in the retailers' jeans as models on the company website.” – Business Insider’s Laura Stampler

VenueSeen has a cool tool that allows the user to integrate an Instagram campaign onto your company website.  Instagram users can label the photos with hashtags that will lead to that company’s website.  Companies can then give out incentives tied to that campaign such as coupons or prizes.

Some more great business ideas are:

• Show off your products – show some products being worn or in action.  Show off a collection!
• Show how it’s made – A DIYer may find this helpful.
• Show what your products and services can do – do a side by side comparison of your work before and after.
• Show off your staff and surroundings – many buyers would like to know more about the company they are purchasing from and their personalities.  I am going to do an office Before and After for Cleriti.
• And last, but not least, everyone loves a good photo…. Share it….

Now, all this sounds great, but is it valuable to the social web? A ComScore report found that Instagram has become a bigger social service than Twitter – with 7.3 million daily mobile users versus Twitter’s 6.9 million. Not to mention, Instagram accounts for roughly 20% number of new mobile user accounts for Facebook.  Great move, Zuck. 

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions – bob@cleriti.com