I’ve totally been bitten by the Instagram bug. The phrase “hang on, I gotta take a picture” is in heavy rotation. I’m even maintaining two accounts – one for BC/DC Ideas and one for the more crazy side of life. Beyond being entertaining for your personal life, there are some great applications for nonprofits and small businesses.

For those who do not know about Instagram, it’s a photo sharing/social media community that is exclusive to Apple mobile products like iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch (sorry to Android, Blackberry and non-smart phone users). People snap pictures with their mobile phone or upload images, apply hip photo filters, and then share it with their followers. Much like any other social media channel, people can follow each other, comment on photos and hashtag images for discovery or organization. There are even celebs who post pics like Justin Beiber, Taylor Swift, tattoo artist Kat Von D, and NBC Today Anchor Savannah Guthrie.

More than posting photos to the community, people can choose to automatically post images to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr and more. This multiplies reach beyond the mobile community. There are websites like Statigram and Instagrid that allow you to share your images on the web, but have limited interaction and usage for non-members.

We are pre-tipping point with this social media channel, it’s missing a HUGE part of the mobile market only being on Apple products, but nonprofits should take advantage of the noob market. Instagram has approximately 14 million new users, is adding 60 photos per second and that will only explode once the other phones are added to the mix.

The reason to get involved in this new community is to share your visual story. There is so many great things to take pictures of in this world. If you work for a visual nonprofit, you are missing out by not engagement your followers on this tool. Take pictures of fun stuff around the office, serious stuff about your mission – essentially give people an inside peek into your world and cause.

Granted this all means that someone on your staff has to let you use their iPhone or your nonprofit ponies up for the phone  plus monthly fees and data charges, but it is worth it! There are already a few nonprofits doing great stuff on the platform:

• Autism Science Foundation @autismsciencefd (Client): The national nonprofit is hosting a photo contest in celebration of its year-end giving campaign, Recipe4Hope, in partnership with PostalPix to find the best snow angel photo on Instagram. While the first photo entry is free, all subsequent photo entries are $5. Deets are here.
• San Francisco MOMA @sfmoma: Selects followers to do live Instagramming at their openings and events. They put out a call a day or two before an event to find people who want to participate and let them attend the event for free.  Very cool idea to get fun images for your next event.
• A.Skate Foundation @askaters: Is using their influence and followers to help them get text messages to win this month’s Pepsi Refresh Challenge.

As with any new social media platform you are going to feel out of sorts and awkward posting those first few images, but it will get better. Make sure to follow lots of people and explore the hashtagging feature. The hashtags are key in connecting with the larger community.

I hope to see your photos on the Instagrams. Let’s all do a little #Instagood!

Insta-Good! Leveraging Instagram for Nonprofits