Instagram - Giving People Power To Build Their Own Community

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With a focus on sharing photographs and videos, Instagram is a well-known social media software. Since its launch in 2010, it has grown in popularity by including cutting-edge new features like Instagram Stories, Instagram Reels, shopping, and others.

Everyone who registers for an Instagram account has an account and a news feed, much as on Twitter or Facebook. It appears on the account when you upload a picture or a clip to Instagram. Your updates appear in the feeds of other people who follow you. You also receive updates from persons you follow.

Similar to other social media platforms, you may communicate with other users by following them, allowing others to follow you, commenting and liking their posts, tagging, and sending private messages. Furthermore, photos uploaded on Instagram can be saved.

There is a lot to learn about Instagram, so here is some helpful information to help you know more about this social networking platform.

Instagram - Company Highlights

Instagram - About and How it Works?
Instagram - Industry
Instagram - Founders
Instagram - Startup Story
Instagram - Name, Logo, and Tagline
Instagram - Vision and Mission
Instagram - Features
Instagram - Business Model
Instagram - Acquisition By Facebook or Meta
Instagram - Funding, and Investors
Instagram - Acquisitions
Instagram - Competitors
Instagram - Future Plans

Instagram - About and How it Works?

In 2010, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger launched Instagram, a social media platform for sharing photos and videos. Facebook Inc. eventually purchased Instagram.

Users of the app may upload media that can be altered using filters, arranged by hashtags, and categorised by location. Public or pre-approved followers may share posts. Users may examine trending information, like photographs, follow other users to add their data to a personal feed and browse other users' content by tag and location.

When Instagram first launched, it set itself apart by restricting content framing to a square (1:1) aspect ratio of 640 pixels, which matched the width of the iPhone's display at the time.

With an upgrade to 1080 pixels in 2015, these limitations were loosened. Additionally, it included messaging capabilities, the ability to upload multiple photographs or videos, and a feature called Stories that was comparable to Snapchat's major rival and let users publish information to a feed that was sequential and viewable by others for a 24-hour period. 500 million people a day are using Stories as of January 2019.

In the Instagram space, "handle" is a phrase for "username" or "account name." The name of an Instagram account is what is meant when someone mentions an "Instagram handle."

Instagram - Industry

Users of social media can exchange images, videos, and audio files. Revenues from advertising and sales of other services provided on social media platforms are included in this market. At a compound annual growth rate of 39.7%, the size of the worldwide social media industry is anticipated to increase from $159.68 billion in 2021 to $223.11 billion in 2022.

The companies' reorganisation of operations and recovery from the COVID-19 impact, which had previously resulted in restrictive containment measures involving social estrangement, remote work, and the closure of commercial activities that created operational challenges, are primarily responsible for the growth. At a CAGR of 39%, the market is anticipated to reach $833.50 billion in 2026.

44% of users use Instagram on a weekly basis to shop utilising features like the Shop tag, according to findings from an Instagram for a business study conducted in 2022.

To enable direct transactions within their platforms, other social media businesses like Snapchat and Twitter have also incorporated shopping ads. Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter, and LinkedIn are significant players in the social media sector.

Instagram - Founders

Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger introduced the Instagram app on October 6, 2010. In just one day, the software attracted 25,000 users.

Kevin Systrom

American computer programmer and businessman, Kevin Systrom, was born on December 30, 1983, in Holliston, Massachusetts. Systrom learned how to code while he was a student at Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts.

On the 2016 list of America's Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40 was Systrom. As of September 2017, Instagram had 800 million monthly users and was experiencing rapid growth under Systrom's leadership. On September 24, 2018, he handed in his notice as Instagram's CEO.

Mike Krieger

Brazilian-American businessman and software engineer Miachel Krieger (born March 4, 1986) worked as Instagram's CTO and co-founded the social media platform with Kevin Systrom.

Krieger relocated to California in 2004 to attend Stanford University after being born in So Paulo, Brazil. He met Kevin Systrom while studying symbolic systems at Stanford. While Krieger was CTO, Instagram grew from a few million users to 1 billion active monthly users. Krieger and Systrom's resignation from Instagram was announced on September 24, 2018.

Instagram - Startup Story

A recent Stanford University graduate, Kevin Systrom was employed by the travel advice business Nextstop in 2009. Systrom had previously interned at Odeo, a business that would ultimately become Twitter, and served as a corporate development associate at Google.

While working at Nextstop, Systrom learnt to code on the side because he had no professional experience in computer science. In the end, he created a web app prototype named Burbn, which was influenced by his preference for premium whiskey and bourbon.

Users of the Burbn app may check in, share their activities, and exchange pictures. Even while location-based check-in applications were relatively common at the time, Burbn's photo-sharing function stood out.

A pivotal moment occurred in March 2010, when Systrom went to a party for Hunch, a Silicon Valley-based business. Two venture investors from Baseline Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz were introduced to Systrom at the event.

They agreed to meet for coffee to continue their conversation after he demonstrated the app's prototype to them. Systrom made the decision to leave his job and concentrate on Burbn after their initial encounter. Within two weeks, he had secured $500,000 in initial money for his business endeavour from Baseline Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz.

Systrom was able to begin recruiting a team to support his endeavour thanks to this initial investment; the first person to do so was 25-year-old Mike Krieger.

After Krieger joined, the two reevaluated Burbn and chose to concentrate mostly on images acquired particularly with mobile devices. The Hipstamatic app caught the attention of Krieger and Systrom due to its popularity and intriguing features that could be applied to photos, such as filters.

Systrom and Krieger recognised possibilities in creating an app that connected Hipstamatic and social media sites like Facebook because it lacked social media-sharing features.

Burbn was reduced to only its photo, commenting, and "liking" features as a step backwards. They changed the name of their programme to Instagram at that moment, fusing the phrases "instant" and "telegram." They also started concentrating on enhancing the photo-sharing process.

The software was created with the idea of being simple and requiring as little user interaction as possible. They distributed the app to pals for beta testing and performance evaluation after eight weeks of finalising it. They brought the software to launch after fixing several bugs.

Instagram - Name, Logo, and Tagline

Burbn, a web application that served as the initial version of Instagram, was motivated by Kevin Systrom's passion for premium bourbons and whiskeys.

They refocused their app on photo-sharing, which had grown in popularity among its users, after realising that it was too similar to Foursquare. They gave it a new name—Instagram, a combination of the words "instant camera" and "telegram."

The contemporary curved square and circle continue to stand in for the vintage Polaroid camera as the logo of Instagram. This Instagram logo represents attentiveness, experiences, youth, and nostalgia.

The slogan of Instagram is "Capture and Share the World's Moments," and that is exactly what it is all about.

Instagram - Vision and Mission

Instagram's vision statement says, "Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together."

Instagram's mission statement is, "to capture and share the world's moments."

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Instagram - Features

Instagram's business structure is dependent on the variety of tools and features it provides, which include:

• Stories - Using this tool, users may share films and photographs for a full day. The shared content vanishes after 24 hours. Using this capability, anyone may also go live.
• Pictures - The primary function of Instagram is taking pictures and sharing them across many networks.
• Videos - Instagram began as a simple photo-sharing software. Later, users were able to post films up to 60 seconds long.
• Filters - Instagram users may edit their photographs using a variety of filters available on the platform.
• Explore Tab - Instagram users may find anything and anything utilising the Explore tab. To find what they're looking for, people can utilise hashtags and usernames. In addition, customers may just click the tab to view the featured material. Additionally, they may view recent activity from the persons they follow.
• Instagram Direct - Instagram Direct enables users to speak with their followers while sharing photographs and videos. Requests for messages can also be sent to those who are not following you.

Instagram - Business Model

Instagram's primary revenue sources include online advertising, Instagram shopping, and creator tools.

Advertising

Instagram's oldest and main revenue source is digital advertising. Instagram freely displays advertisements across the stories, feed, Explore Tab, IGTV, and Reels. The advertisements are available in a variety of forms, including photos, videos, carousels, collections, and shopping advertising.

Instagram Shopping

Instagram originally introduced Shoppable posts at the tail end of 2016, allowing businesses to tag items in posts just the way users tag friends. Shoppable posts reduced friction in the purchasing process by assisting consumers in learning about and evaluating the purchase loop. However, they were routed to the brand's website to complete the transaction.

Instagram would receive a portion of the transaction in exchange for less friction and higher conversions, much like an affiliate.  Instagram expanded the functionality of Shoppable posts in March 2019 by enabling users to complete their purchases directly from the Instagram app, thereby decreasing the friction associated with the purchasing process. Instagram charges businesses a fee, just like the Shoppable posts feature.

Creator's Tool

Content is the foundation of user participation and development, while creators are the vital element of content. Therefore, if an application relies on user-generated content, paying users to create content might encourage them to create more material and do so more frequently.

In addition to sharing ad income, Instagram allows artists to earn money via badges, which fans can use to support a creator during a live broadcast.

During a live stream, individuals who buy badges get a heart icon next to their name in the comments. During the live session, queries posed by users who have purchased badges are emphasised. Instagram doesn't take a commission of the money earned through badge sales. Instead, creators get their whole share.

Instagram - Acquisition By Facebook or Meta

Facebook acquired Instagram in April 2012 for an extraordinary $1 billion amount. Instagram had only 25 million registered users at the time of the purchase, a meagre number when compared to Facebook's hundreds of millions of users. Instagram was still expanding quickly. Additionally, Instagram was just two years old, operated by 13 people, and did not generate any profit.

Even Twitter had tried its hand at pursuing Instagram before Facebook sealed the deal. But the founders of Instagram, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger chose to continue working with Facebook since, in addition to the enormous monetary base, Zukerberg offered them independence.

In exchange for accepting Facebook's offer to buy it, Instagram would be given the freedom to continue operating as an independent business in addition to avoiding the Facebook threat and gaining access to Facebook's engineering resources. The independence would soon fade, though, and was a major factor in both of the founders of Instagram leaving Facebook.

Instagram's growth path to 1 billion+ monthly active users is intertwined with the gradual loss of founders' freedom.

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Instagram - Funding, and Investors

Instagram - Acquisitions

Instagram - Competitors

Top competitors of Instagram are :

• Twitter
• Snapchat
• Pinterest
• WhatsApp
• Quora
• Tiktok
• Vine
• Triller

Instagram - Future Plans

Instagram wants to put more emphasis on reels and videos, freedom and power. The photo-sharing app wants to provide Better features for shopping. The app is focusing on technology that completes search that goes beyond usernames and hashtags and put emphasis on Instagram is maintained. The app is also planning on additions to the AR filters for Instagram stories.

Instagram - FAQs

Who is the founder of Instagram?

Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger founded Instagram in 2010.

What is the revenue of Instagram?

Instagram generated an estimated revenue of $47.6 billion in 2021.

When was Instagram acquired by Facebook?

In April 2012, Facebook Inc. acquired Instagram for approximately $1 billion.

What is the valuation of Instagram?

Instagram is estimated to be valued at over $100 billion.