What Instagram Knows that You Should

Two statements from Instagram website, and one of its co-founders, Kevin Systrom, are very telling about how movers and shakers of the social media world see their role.

The official website of photo and video sharing platform says the site is “a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your life with friends and family.” That’s more or else what Mark Zuckerberg, the face of Facebook has said. “At Facebook, we build tools to help people connect with the people they want and share what they want, and by doing this we are extending people’s capacity to build and maintain relationships.

But both Zuckerberg, whose company now owns Instagram, and Systrom have also evolved their thinking in saying their platforms are no longer just about connecting people. It is about making money and it’s about allowing that connectivity to mean something.

How do companies like Instagram get to do that? How would they allow other companies to achieve their goal and mission using social media platforms? One way is to spend massive amounts of money on online and mobile advertising. Last year, online advertising in the United States was more than $23 billion. Mobile advertising was $5 billion.

Another way is by offering buy shoutouts, a relatively-new and simple concept through which people with more followers allow the lesser fortunate ones to grow their network.

Online sites such as http://buyashoutout.com now sell buy Instagram shoutouts. There, you can also buy Twitter tweets, buy Twitter retweets,or buy revines to re-send Vine video clips on your mobile.

To buy Instagram shoutout, your budget might go down between $20 and $100, but it can flood your site with up to thousands of new followers.

An Instagram shoutout might be the best PR purchase you’ve ever made.