Instagram is an online mobile-photo sharing, short video sharing and interactive social media platform. It allows the users to click picture or shoot mini video clips and publish along with the other social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr and Flickr. Instagram was launched on October 6, 2010 and on April 3, 2012, Facebook acquired for approximately US $1bn. Instagram is a blend of two words Instant Picture and Telegram. The popularity of Instagram increased as it allows the users to publish and share the picture, as with the app (available on iOS and Android, both). Instagram was initially was co-founded by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.

Instagram has been very popular amongst the user and has given birth to several trends, one of which is Selfie. Selfie: Defined as self-portrait photograph, which is typically shot with a cellphone camera or a digital camera. With the introduction of Hashtag, Instagram added to its popularity where different users can see the pictures or videos of the same trending topics. Another interesting trend, which Instagram started, was of Throw Back Thursdays (#TBT). In this Hashtag or trend users publish their childhood pictures, typically or any picture from the events or function etc.

Pictures appear on the smartphone photo sharing application Instagram on April 10, 2012 in Paris, one day after Facebook announced a billion-dollar-deal to buy the startup behind Instagram. The free mini-program lets people give classic looks to square photos using "filters" and then share them at Twitter, Facebook or other social networks. AFP PHOTO THOMAS COEX (Photo credit should read THOMAS COEX/AFP/Getty Images)

Pictures appear on the smartphone photo sharing application Instagram on April 10, 2012 in Paris, one day after Facebook announced a billion-dollar-deal to buy the startup behind Instagram. The free mini-program lets people give classic looks to square photos using “filters” and then share them at Twitter, Facebook or other social networks. AFP PHOTO THOMAS COEX (Photo credit should read THOMAS COEX/AFP/Getty Images)

Instagram also allows users to geotag their pictures as per their location by using the longitude and latitude coordinates, and also by name of the place. Users can also edit their pictures before publishing and sharing. These editing tools offer to completely revamp the image before publishing it on the site like adding effects (shadow, black and white, sepia etc.), crop and tilt images, adding the borders. The Explore Tab on the Instagram app allows the user to search the pictures of same interest with the use of Hashtag, but the condition is that the other picture must be open for the public viewing. Many celebrities and public figures have their Instagram accounts, with large number of followers. Musicians like Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez, Actors like Keanu Reeves and Russell Crowe, Sportspersons like Maria Sharapova and Williams Sisters have their Instagram accounts. Instagram also has a service of uploading the video on the platform. However, the video length has to be 15 seconds. When Facebook acquired Instagram, it had given this facility to compete with Twitter’s Vine that only allows the video length of 6 seconds.

Many companies and businesses have used Instagram for their promotional and marketing activities. By the use of Hashtags, companies are penetrating in the market of their prospective customers for brand building and communicating their products and offerings. There are several interesting facts like 62 percentage of the user base is of female gender whereas when it comes to using Instagram iOS and Android, it is equally segregated with 50 percent share each. It may appear that Instagram is the largest photo-sharing platform but if one looks at the statistics then Instagram only contributes to 7 percent of the daily photo uploads on the all the photo-sharing platforms.

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