The Secret to the Success of Instagram
Instagram is gaining in popularity, despite numerous events that people thought might be its undoing. There must be a reason for it. And the reason is so obvious it is amazing not all other social networks are copying it.
It is simple, Instagram is built around features its people want, not what businesses want.
No matter how successful Instagram has become, almost all of their features they add are important for people. They have added new filters, improve the Explore feature, and better editing tools, to name a few. Most of the improvements to Instagram even crack the Top 10 features businesses and marketers want, except for the addition of video.
The emphasis on the user keeps them happy and active. So active, it is now #2 in the United States among social networks.
What about the other networks
But many social networks claim they care about their people. They probably mean it too. But they include businesses as their people and they put them on a pedestal. For good reason too, businesses have money to invest and apply to using in the social network to get more out of it.
Over time, pandering (or the nicer, giving priority) to businesses has some negative outcomes towards the entire user experience. For the king of all examples, see Facebook. It is still extremely popular, but often people talk negative about it. It falls into the same category as email. Have to have it, but don’t like it. This is not what brings in new and excited people that want to add to the quality of the network.
How does Instagram Keep the Experience User Friendly?
Instagram makes their people happy by making it harder for businesses. Either on purpose or as an accident from trying to focus on their people.
Biggest annoyance for businesses using Instagram…. You can only post images and videos from the Instagram app itself. And you can only be signed in with one account at a time. How annoying is this for businesses? Just do a search for “how can I post to multiple accounts in Instagram”. People have found work-arounds, but they are not great and could disappear at any time.
No urls accepted. Who uses urls, it is not people, it is businesses. People just want to communicate with their network. Because no one likes any of the click-bait links.
The content feed in Instagram is not as busy as Twitter or Facebook. Because the focus on media for each post, it is difficult for it to get to full unless you follow a lot of people.
Even tagging people in photos and in comments is passive. The person tagged is notified, but the post is not instantly included in that person’s content feed and certainly is not included in the content feed of the followers of the tagged person.
The lack of ads. You will see an ad every once and a while with Instagram, but it is few and far in between. Instagram is lucky here. They benefit because they got bought by Facebook. They do not need the monetary aspect of their network in the same way that Twitter does. Regardless, this is a huge plus for Instagram.
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The catch is that while Instagram is the toast of the town for people today, it can change very quickly. Even if Instagram doesn’t do something negative, an upstart social network finding a way to give people an experience they want can take away from Instagram.
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Side note: The irony that Instagram is one of the most liked and Facebook is the opposite, but Facebook owns Instagram is probably something that the stock holders and board members of Facebook laugh about everyday.
