Sometimes, things move very quickly in the world of social media.
Just over a week ago, my co-host Cat Matson and I recorded an episode of Social Media for Small Business on the popular photo sharing application, Instagram. I’ve been using Instagram personally for many months and saw that it could be a great tool for businesses to use too. So, in an interview with Brooke Simmons of Pursuit Communications, we discussed the power of Instagram for small business and how it allows you to tell your business story though images. On the day we recorded, the episode the application was only available for iPhone users. A few days later, the platform was opened up to Android users and saw over a million downloads within hours.
And, this morning it was announced that Facebook has acquired Instagram for $1 billion dollars.
Wow. Wow. Wow.
On his Facebook page, Mark Zuckerberg has issued a statement about the acquisition. While this sale is terrific news for the founders and shareholders of Instagram, I’m not sure what it’ll mean for we, the people. I, for one, don’t want to see the app absorbed by and integrated fully into Facebook. Zuckerberg says;
“We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience. We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook.”
I sure hope that is the case. Instagram has its own community, quirkiness, integration with many networks and sense of fun and wonder. It’s a powerful tool for business and it’s a wonderful startup success story. I’m all for progress. I hope that is what we see – a better experience for us as users and as business people. Here’s a link to the Social Media for Small Business episode on Instagram. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
