Instagram is a free mobile photo sharing app that allows users to take pictures, apply filters to the pictures, and share them on a social network. The app gained popularity quickly, reaching 40 million users in early 2012. It was acquired by Facebook for $1 billion later that year. The acquisition was seen as a strategic move by Facebook to eliminate competition from other emerging social media apps.

1. Megan Cabrera Blake Coffin
Instagram
Diana Colgrove Jordan Elliston

2. What is Instagram?
• Free mobile photo sharing
app designed to offer
connectivity
– Users share their photos
with an online community
• Easy transition: amateur
picture-taker to
professional photographer

3. Insta + Gram
Capture qualities of the Snapshots similar to
Polaroid camera, telegrams, sent over
where pictures are the wire to others
“instant”
= Instagram, 2011 App of the Year

4. Instagram Users
The number of users
45,000,000 reached 40 million
this month
40,000,000
35,000,000
30,000,000
25,000,000
20,000,000 Android
version
15,000,000
released
10,000,000
5,000,000
0
Oct 2010 2
1 3 4 5 Feb 2011
6 7 8 Oct 2011 10
9 11 2012 12
Jan April 2012
13

5. Instagram as a Social App
• Become “followed” and a “follower”
• Friends, smartphone contacts, suggested
users, organizations, brands
• Tag, comment, and “like”
• #hashtags to tag your photos
with a subject of interest

6. Photo Effects
• Upload or use app to take picture
• All photos are square (crop)
• Frame, rotate, blur, and brighten
• Filter effects
• Vintage/retro style

7. CROP CHOOSE EFFECT POST

8. Search Statistics
Increased Google
searches for “Instagram”
= awareness and
exposure

9. Across the Globe
• United States
dominates
• Growth potential
worldwide
• Meeker’s trend:
Globality

10. R Marketing Implications
United States United Kingdom

11. News: Android Release
• Instagram was only
offered for the Apple
iPhone for over a year
• The Android app
release created a 10
million user growth –
1 million new users/day
• Beware of malware:
fake version of the app
that sends SMS
messages without the
owner’s consent

12. News: Facebook Takeover
2 CEO’s under 30
$1 Billion
Motive: Eliminate the competition?
Facebook to go public

13. InstaCompetition
• Hipster – the same concept as Instagram but with rectangular
photos. To these, users can add locations and comments, basically
creating postcards.
• Picplz – a social photography app with a sophisticated editing
program, even features a function to make memes out of your
photos.
• EyeEm – groups shared photos by categories such as coffee, New
York, etc.
• PicYou – an Instagram-like app that boasts itself as exclusively for
the iPhone.
• Jittergram – allows you to create a 3D-like image, called a
stereogram or stereograph.
• Path – an Android app called a “smart journal that lets you share
your life with the ones you love.”

15. How to Find Us
• http://instablogger.wordpress.com/
Follow us on
Instagram:
Instabloggers

16. Sources
• http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/instagr.am
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/11/like-instagram-apps-
alternatives_n_1417483.html
• http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/instagram-alternatives-seize-moment-
users-after-facebook-acquistion.php
• http://gigaom.com/2012/04/10/did-facebook-just-throw-instagrams-rivals-a-lifeline/
• http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/18/tech/social-media/zuckerberg-instagram-
deal/index.html
• http://www.businessinsider.com/instagram-was-facebooks-biggest-threat-2012-4
• http://www.splatf.com/2012/04/facebook-instagram/
• http://9to5google.com/2012/04/13/instagram-for-android-gets-10m-users-in-10-days-
launching-service-to-40m-users-total/
• http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/04/18/fake-instagram-app-android-malwar/
• http://instagr.am/about/
• http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/apple-names-instagram-top-
app-of-the-year/2011/12/09/gIQAg1VuhO_story.html
• http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/13/instagrams-user-count-now-at-40-million-saw-10-
million-new-users-in-last-10-days/