Social Spotlight - Instagram Archives

You Can Now Tag Photos on Instagram

2013-05-02T18:33:55Z

In what is the first major move to make Instagram more like Facebook since the acquisition last year, users can now tag their Instagram photos.

“Photos are memories of the people, places and moments that mean the most to us,” the company blog said. “We have always sought to give you simple and expressive ways to bring the stories behind your photos to life. Your captions and hashtags capture the ‘what?’ and your Photo Map answers the ‘where?’ but until today we’ve never quite been able to answer the ‘who?’”

As with many features that give other people access to your information online, yes – there is a way to adjust your settings and control who sees what. There will now be a “Photos of You” section on profiles, with the option to adjust settings so users can approve a photo before others can see it. Users can also opt to hide a photo tagged of them from their profile by simply tapping on their name in the tagged photo and selecting “Hide from My Profile.” On the flip side, if you decide you actually do want people to see that photo, go through the same steps and select “Show on My Profile.” They can also completely remove themselves from a tagged photo by tapping their name on a tagged photo, selecting “More Options” and then “Remove Me from Photo.”

Just like getting tagged in a photo or post on Facebook, you will receive a notification if someone tags you in a photo. If your Instagram account is private, only people following you will be able to see photos tagged of you.

Users can tag any other Instagram account in a photo, including friends, brands and businesses. For now, only you can tag your own photos. You have until May 16 to play with the feature until the section is available for others to see.

More questions? Click here for Instagram’s help center on the Photos of You feature.

Happy New Year!

2012-12-31T21:19:02Z

On the last day of 2012, I’d like to wish you a very happy and safe New Year! Here’s what’s happening on the social media blogs this New Year’s Eve.

Twitter: Resolutions

Already trending on Twitter are NYE, Happy New Year, #Best 2012Memories and #MyWishIn2013. As similar topics start to emerge as the celebrations continue, be on the lookout for a huge amount of resolution tweets tomorrow.

“Whether you aspire to something silly or serious next year, Tweeting your #resolutions can be an effective way to account for your actions.”

Still haven’t made any resolutions for the next 365 days? The blog post links to some helpful resources for ideas.

Instagram: Ringing in the New Year

Prepare for glitter. Lots of it. Although you can opt to search for NYE photos on Instagram, the photo sharing service wanted to give you a simple way to see how people are celebrating at instagram.com/nye along with locations in the world (organized by time zones) actually already ringing in the New Year. Instagram also hosts a Weekend Hashtag Project every weekend, with the most recent one appropriately themed #WHPResolutions.

Looking forward to seeing what 2013 holds for both Instagram and Twitter. Happy New Year!

Year in Review -- 2012 on Social Media

2012-12-27T17:06:29Z

As we inch closer to the New Year, social networks are rounding up 2012 with the top highlights, trends and events of the past 12 months. Most of these reports came out before the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT shooting and Christmas -- two 2012 events that dominated social media and I think belong on all of these lists.

By now, we’ve gathered that if something big is going on, you can always count on Facebook to find out a) what is happening and b) what all of your friends think about it. As a population, it’s just what we do – share.

With Facebook’s 2012 year in review, users can revisit the 20 biggest moments on their Facebook Timeline including life events, highlighted posts and popular stories. Here are some of the top trends on Facebook this year by categories.

2012 was the year of memes.

TBH (to be honest)
YOLO (you only live once)
KONY
One-word comment
Gangnam Style
Cinnamon challenge
Cray
SMH (shaking my head)
Big Bird
Linsanity

Events

U.S. Presidential Election
Superbowl XLVI
Death of Whitney Houston
Superstorm Sandy
London 2012 Olympics
Death of Trayvon Martin
Facebook IPO
Aurora shootings
Death of Dick Clark
Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage.

Television

Duck Dynasty
Honey Boo Boo
Big Bang Theory
Game of Thrones
Downtown Abbey
Breaking Amish
Ink Master
Long Island Medium
Wife Swap
Two Broke Girls

Top 2012 Google searches included Whitney Houston, Gangnam Style and Hurricane Sandy. Image searches were for One Direction, Selena Gomez and iPhone 5, athlete searches were for Jeremy Lin, Michael Phelps and Peyton Manning, events were for Hurricane Sandy, Kate Middleton Pictures Released and Olympics 2012 and top feature film searches were for The Hunger Games, Skyfall and Prometheus.

Twitter has quickly become a blend between being a real-time news source, an instant source of memes and a personal diary for users’ opinions on everything happening in the world. Included in the year wrap-up includes Golden Tweets, Pulse of the planet, Only on Twitter, Trends, New Voices and Your year on Twitter. Partnering with Vizify, a personal website that provides interactive infographics powered by your data, your year on Twitter includes a golden tweet from 2012, a golden follower, key words I tweeted and how many responses, and how many tweets since January 2012. Users have the option to share the golden tweets and most talked-about topics, as well as issue a “Thank you” to your golden follower.

The top tweet of 2012 is by Barack Obama after the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election, which he tweeted, “Four more years,” accompanied by a photo of the first couple hugging. Other golden tweets included tweets by Justin Bieber, TJ Lang, Team GB and actor Kouichi Yamadera.

When it comes to taking a look at past events, there’s no better medium than the social media photo sharing site that gives us a visually appealing look at these events. From Lo-Fi and X-Pro II to Amaro and Nashville, if there’s a photo, there’s a filter for it. Instagram helps judge what were considered some of the biggest events based on how many users tag a photo with a hashtag or location.

Besides the top events Instagram listed, users can also browse more photos of events from around the world in 2012 by browsing blog posts with the “Current Events” tag.

Each year brings more infamous statuses, tweets, photos and searches. However, 2012 wouldn’t be complete without sharing videos. YouTube’s 2012 rewind featured the most popular clips, including Call Me Maybe covers, Gangnam Style and Flex Baumgartner’s supersonic freefall. In 2012, users watched four billion hours of video a month.

“Millions of creators are using YouTube channels to experiment with innovative forms of entertainment, explore their passions and interests, and take creativity and pop culture to new levels. 2012’s top trending videos showcase this creative ingenuity in ways we'd never before thought possible,” said YouTube in a blog post.

Here's an infographic of the 2012 in a summary. (Click for larger image)

That wraps up some of the 2012 reviews for the major social media sites used by billions of users around the world. Stay tuned for what 2013 has to bring and what we will do to document it! Happy New Year.

Twitter Filters and Instagram Update

2012-12-11T14:22:45Z

Since the massive adoption and popularity of Instagram, we’ve seen a few other sites pick up filters of their own. Facebook, which acquired Instagram in April, recently updated its photo uploading feature. Users can now upload multiple photos at a time (up to 30) and edit with Facebook's own set of filters.

Facebook filters

Last week, Instagram pulled support for Twitter Cards, which enables users to view an Instagram photo straight from the Twitter feed. Since Instagram launched Web profiles and is increasing its Web presence, Instagram integration with Twitter now only shows a link instead of the photo.

In response to this, Twitter has launched its own set of filters.

Twitter filters

The ability to share photos on Twitter has been possible since June 2011. Unlike Instagram photos on Twitter now (just a link), the Twitter filters are allowed to be viewed right from the tweet. The new feature allows users to edit photos and apply photo filters from within Twitter-built applications. Aviary, a provider of photo-editing applications, powers Twitter’s new filters and effects feature. There are eight filter options similar to Instagram’s 19, ranging from black and white to vintage. Other effects include cropping, zooming and auto-enhancing.

Twitter isn’t alone in the application updates. Instagram also announced updates yesterday, with improved camera features and a new filter, Willow. Yesterday’s update (Instagram 3.2) is the largest upgrade to the Instagram iOS camera since Instagram was revamped a year ago.

Improved changes include improve tilt-shift focus, larger images on news feeds, Instagram-themed shutter and shutter release button, a preview of the most recent photo on your camera roll, improved camera roll image selector, optional grid guide for live photos and a permanent grid guide for the scale and crop screen and speed and reliability improvements.

Instagram update

Filtered photos are now saved to a separate album called “Instagram” in the iOS camera roll and there is a Foursquare button on location pages that opens the Foursquare application, or mobile website, with details about the venue.

Willow is a monochrome filter with subtle purple tones and a translucent glowing white border, working well on portraits, still life and architecture photographs with contrast. The latest addition to the filter family is available on both iOS and Android devices.

The competition is still going strong between the two giant social networks. Maybe Instagram's Foursquare integration will continue to get stronger, improving the location-focused app and continuing the feud between Twitter and Instagram. For users, now you have three huge options for adding filters to your photos to three different platforms -- choices are starting to get a little overwhelming.

Instagram and Twitter - 'Social Media Frenemies'

2012-12-06T19:35:09Z

Over the past 24 hours there has been a lot of talk about how Instagram pulled support for Twitter Cards, resulting in cropped or poorly displayed images if you opt to click “View photo” instead of the actual Instagram link.

Users can still share Instagram photos to Twitter, but the image on the two platforms will look different. The idea is to increase traffic to Instagram and utilize the platform and its Web presence more directly, especially now that it has released its Web profiles.

“A handful of months ago, we supported Twitter cards because we had a minimal Web presence. We’ve since launched several improvements to our website that allow users to directly engage with Instagram content through likes, comments, hashtags, and now we believe the best experience is for us to link back to where the content lives,” said Kevin Systrom, Instagram CEO and co-founder, in a statement.

Image via SlashGear

I know this is big news for the companies – I’m sure Twitter wants to be able to offer a completely integrated and seamless experience to users just as much as Instagram wants to drive traffic to its platform -- but as users, is it such a big deal?

First of all, I noticed differences in some Twitter-posted Instagram photos yesterday, but I’m searching now and can’t even tell the difference. Depending on the image, you can still get the general gist of the photo, even with the crop. The problem Instagram might face is the fact that users just may not care that much to click on links. Personally, this probably won’t affect my laptop/PC experience, as I click on links pretty often, but mobile-wise, I’m much less likely to click on a link just because it slows my flow. Unless I really, really want to see that image, I’ll likely just move on and go back to catching up on my feed.

Apparently, the plan is for Instagram users to be able to share photos to Twitter via links only. There is no need to worry about a future complete disintegration between the two platforms, though.

Systrom said, “We think it’s a better user experience, currently. I think this is an evolution of who we are and where we want links to our content to go. We will always be integrated with Twitter with regards to tweeting a link to your Instagram photo.”