Instagram Declares War

For those who may not yet have heard, Instagram has cut support for Twitter cards. What does that mean? It means that now hundreds of thousands of Instagram photos will stop properly displaying on Twitter. It seems a huge step backwards from the accessibility and happily synchronized social media services that we, the users, have become accustomed to. Instead of making things better, Instagram has purposefully made things worse.

But why? It seems that the decision might be tied to Facebook's Instagram purchase - and Twitter is a large and growing rival for the social media giant. Teens are leaving in mass exodus for Twitter now that they have to be Facebook "friends" with their parents, grandma, and boss - and Twitter offers a new social sphere that isn't yet completely dominated by adult control. In addition, Twitter has been working on its own set of photo filters - ones that could rival Instagram.

Only one question now: will there be a social media war in the near future?

Using Hashtags for Branding

Originally posted by awkwardimages.com

A few weeks ago, we revealed the mystery of hashtags to explain what they are and how to implement a hashtag strategy on Twitter. But did you know that hashtags are also very useful for other social media sites, such as Instagram, Pinterest and Google+? They are becoming so popular, one couple recently named their newborn daughter Hashtag!

You use hashtags on other social networking sites in much the same way you do on Twitter. Simply add a # symbol in front of the word or phrase you wish to tag (without spaces) in your post. You can also add hashtags to words in comments, although you must be the original poster for this to work on Instagram.

So how can your brand benefit from using hashtags? You can run a promotion asking users to upload photos of your product or from your event with a specific hashtag and use the content in later promotions. (See this Mashablearticle for some examples of branded hashtag contests on Instagram). The best thing about hashtags is that you can be really creative in coming up with ways to use them for your brand – and let your fans get really creative with the implementation!

Please share your hashtag success stories with us in the comments below.

InternetMarketingClub.org Presents: Understanding Instagram Analytics

If you've tuned into our recent Wednesday Webinars of September and October, you've learned a great deal about Instagram and how it can help your brand marketing efforts. IMC host Matt Wooddy is back with this week's webinar dedicated to fully exploring the advantages of Instagram analytics tools, such as Statigram and Simply Measured. With tools such as these to help your campaigns, you're sure to become the next Instagram wizard!


Click here to register for FREE (10-24-12 at 12:30pm EST) 
http://bit.ly/instalytics


About Matt Wooddy:

For the last five years, Matt Wooddy has used his social wizardry to completely turn around the presence of over 200 Twitter, Facebook and Google+ accounts. Clients have included Discount Tire, Prick Magazine, Motorsporting, Art&Ink Publications, CustomUSB and more. Understanding that social media is more than just a place to promote your brand, he uses personal interaction and entertaining messages to improve the branding and interest of any given company. Matt has also provided content and copy edited for several nationally and internationally published alternative lifestyle magazines.

Click here to register for FREE (10-24-12 at 12:30pm EST) 
http://bit.ly/instalytics

The Mystery of Hashtags Revealed

I’ve been asked a lot lately about hashtags, so I thought I’d put together a brief tutorial for those of you out there scratching your heads at the phenomenon of adding a pound symbol (#) in front of a word or phrase. What does it mean and why should you care?

The hashtag first became used in popular culture on Twitter as a way for users to categorize or group messages together and as a way for their tweets to be found more easily in Twitter search results. To create a hashtag, simply add the pound symbol (#) before a key word or phrase that you want to highlight. For example, if you are a retailer and you’re having a big sale on shoes, you might use #ShoeSale in your tweet to help get found by anybody looking for a shoe sale. (The capital letters don’t have an effect on search, but it makes the words easier to read). As Jeff Bullas points out in his blog, “hashtags are like Twitter SEO.”

At the same time, you can find other people who are talking about your product or industry by doing a hashtag search of your own. You would simply type your keywords into the search bar to find anyone who is talking about #shoes and join the conversation. Many events and conventions designate a hashtag that attendees can use to find other Twitter users who are attending the same event, and people who cannot attend may still follow along what is happening by following the hashtag. Televised events now have hashtags that are broadcast to viewers so everyone can be part of the same conversation, such as the Democratic National Convention (#DNC2012) and Republican National Convention (#RNC2012).  If you do a search in Twitter for these hashtags, a list of tweets showing these topics will come up. Often, hashtagged words that are very popular become Trending Topics.

Hashtags are not just limited to Twitter anymore. Other social media platforms, such as Pinterestand Instagram, have also picked up on using hashtags as a way for users to categorize their content and to make searches easier – both to find what they’re looking for and for others to find them. How are you using hashtags for your business? Have you had success in creating your own trending hashtag? Tell us about it in the comments below.

Are You on Instagram?

If your company isn't on Instagram yet, research shows that you're behind - 40% of top US brands are already on this up-and-coming platform, according to Mashable. While this pales in comparison to the 98% of companies on Facebook, Instagram is a fast-growing platform that allows companies to connect with their consumer base in a completely different way. Brands can create Instagram accounts and share photos with their fans, so it's great for the retail industry, but Instagram could also have applications for tourism (photos of the destinations), event planners (event photos), arts (gallery opening photos), and more. Plus, Instagram released hashtags to better allow companies and people to find photos and topics they love. Brisk Iced Tea ran a campaign that allowed users who tagged #briskpic to compete for a chance to have their photos showcased on limited edition iced tea cans at the SXSW conference. Other companies, like Charity Water, are getting in on the Instagram campaign craze, too, now that it's an ideal platform for running unique photo competitions.

 How can you utilize Instagram for your company?

Marissa Mayer Takes the Helm as CEO of Yahoo

The big surprise in the tech industry this week is the appointment of former Google executive Marissa Mayer as CEO of Yahoo. The announcement was met with mostly positive reactions, even after Mayer revealed she is giving birth to her first child in October and will not be taking maternity leave.

Marissa Mayer is the new CEO of Yahoo

Yahoo is like the elderly statesman of the Internet. It’s been around from the beginning, but in recent years has been overshadowed by newer, younger companies like Google and Facebook, as well as its “CEO Curse,” having gone through five CEOs in as many years. The question is will Mayer be able to turn things around for the company that was once the top site for web search? The answer may depend on which direction she decides to take the company.

These days, most people use Yahoo for email services and as a web portal for news and entertainment. Search is dominated by Google with Microsoft’s Bing breathing down its neck, and Facebook has made it difficult to crack social media, effectively shutting out Google + so far. Yahoo owns the photo sharing site Flckr and some are hoping that Mayer will salvage it, which would mean going head to head with Instagram, the photo sharing app recently purchased by Facebook for $1 billion. Also, taking into consideration that Mayer’s last position at Google was as VP in charge of local, maps and location services, she could try to dominate the local/mobile market, an open niche that has no clear leader at the moment.

Do you think Mayer can save Yahoo? What do you think her strategy should be?

The 3 E’s of Marketing [INFOGRAPHIC]

Ten Golden Rules is jumping on the Pinterestcraze with its first infographic, or “information graphic,” as a web marketing tool. For this foray into the graphics space, TGR’s CEO Jay Berkowitz created a visualization of his “3 E’s of Social Media.” Utilizing a mix of cartoon-like images, photos and text, the 3 E’s are illustrated and explained for easy reference and recall. The final test will be to see how quickly and thoroughly this graphic spreads through the web via Repins, Likes and Retweets. Graphics are extremely popular these days with new sites like Pinterest and apps like Instagram gaining millions of users in short amounts of time. Infographics in particular are a visually appealing tool for disseminating statistics and concepts in an easy-to-digest manner. Have you used infographics to market your business? Use the comments section below to tell us about your experience.

Facebook + Instagram = Beat Google?

This week, Facebookannounced its acquisition of photo sharing program Instagramfor… (picture Dr. Evil putting his finger to his lips)  $1 billion dollars. Was this a desperate act to buy up the perceived competition or did Facebook have other motivations behind the purchase?

Most social media marketers seem to think it was a move to stop the competition and gain additional brainpower by merging with the innovative Instagram team. Another way to look at it, as proposed by Jim Dougherty’s blog post on Leader’s West this week, is that Facebook’s buy is actually a chess move against Google to shore up the young, mobile user demographic. It’s an interesting theory, and it will be fascinating to see how this acquisition plays out over the coming months.

New Google + Profile

In the meantime, Google announced an update to its Google + user interface on Wednesday and – surprise, surprise – it looks eerily familiar. The overall looks and navigation is designed to be cleaner and simpler with an improved Hangouts section. You can even add a cover photo to your profile, although the general feeling is this effort may be “too little, too late.”

I, for one, am excited to see Facebook and Google go head to head. America was built on healthy competition to spur innovation. What do you think of the Instagram acquisition by Facebook? Which social media giant do you think is going to come out on top? Leave us your thoughts in the comments section.