Using Instagram for Business - Conversion question

[kevs]

Instagram is pushing their new business model. I cannot make heads or tails on the pros/cons of it. Any thoughts on this? Thanks.

[MattBurt]

I've tried to convert my account at their prompting but it always fails. So I'm not sure either but I'll be interested to hear what others have to say.

[Martin Kristiansen]

I am very nterested in this. Started working with Instagram quite seriously a few months back and I'm starting to generate both paying work and leads so anything that helps that process is most welcome.

[stevebri]

Hidden in the small print of all social media sites is the caveat that once you place an image on your page, its in the public domain, which means anyone and any large company, can use it, for their marketing and advertising, for free.....

I know of many ad agency creatives all over the world who just scroll through instagram and 500px to lift and use work for free....

Instagram asks you to fill out a form if you see another instagrammer using your copyrighted work, but they encourage you to jusk ask them to take your image down, but tjis doesnt help you if a third party has taken your work to use elsewhere.

I havent heard or seen of any photographers winning cases againt having work lifted from social media, lots of expensive lawsuits, no winners.

Isnt social media the best place for throwaway snaps and your website the place to show your work...?

Steve

[MarkM]

Hidden in the small print of all social media sites is the caveat that once you place an image on your page, its in the public domain, which means anyone and any large company, can use it, for their marketing and advertising, for free.....

I know of many ad agency creatives all over the world who just scroll through instagram and 500px to lift and use work for free....

Instagram asks you to fill out a form if you see another instagrammer using your copyrighted work, but they encourage you to jusk ask them to take your image down, but tjis doesnt help you if a third party has taken your work to use elsewhere.

I havent heard or seen of any photographers winning cases againt having work lifted from social media, lots of expensive lawsuits, no winners.

Isnt social media the best place for throwaway snaps and your website the place to show your work...?

Steve

This just isn't true. If I'm wrong please show us the specific small print you're talking about. Most social media sites have license agreements giving the companies broad usage rights, but that is much different than placing the images in the public domain.

As for photographers winning cases, I'm not sure how anyone could have missed Daniel Morel's — it was widely reported:
http://mashable.com/2013/11/23/photographer-lawsuit-twitter/

[kevs]

Actually guys we are moving off topic. As the OP, I'm just asking about Instagram Business model.

It makes sense as a photographer to do that right instead of continuing with amateur page, but really, I'm hesitant as I think once they know you are a business, perhaps your page wont get the free exposure a non business page would? ( I think that's what facebook does... pay up... for exposure now...)

That what I should have asked from the get go...

Anyone know? Opinion?

I agree the stealing images is probably over inflated as an issue.

[MarkM]

Kevs, I have not switched to a business profile because I worry about the same thing. Facebook effectively killed business page engagement unless you were willing to pay and I'm wary of what appears to me an attempt to segment their users on Instagram. At the moment the only advantage a business page seems to offer is a contact button and analytics. For me that has not been a compelling reason to switch.

[kevs]

Mark, thanks for confirming the thought I had....

[douglevy]

I have both (and really, two businesses). I post my wedding work on @doug_levy_weddings, and my commercial and personal on @douglevy. On the professional account, having analytics is nice, and it lets me tag all the photos with the hashtags from the events (almost every wedding I've shot the last 2 years has its own hashtag). Also - one thing that I think gets lost is - ALL THESE SERVICES ARE TOTALLY FREE. In that vein, I feel like, if they want to show me some ads? Totally fair. If they want to dial back my reach if I don't pay? I get it. On occasion I'll pay to boost a FB post (like my annual year in review), and the reach is fantastic. Most of my FB business posts get 1k view, and my year in review got almost 9k (for $25).

Side note: I also spent $10/day on Google Adwords, and that's literally results in tens of thousands of dollars in revenue since June.

-Doug

[kevs]

Thanks Doug, good, but who knows what happens when you covert your Insta account from personal to business. I concur with Mark it a risk to announce to them you are a business.

I have not found FB or Google Adwords to be consistent revenue generators. I have found over the years that Google just wont give enough impressions per dollar,  they always want to milk more...  and FB same thing.... 1k views to $25... what if you want to show 20k? Gets very expensive very fast.  I think $5 for that would be more fair. 

[douglevy]

What do you mean, "Who knows?" in terms of reach? That's why I have separate accounts for my separate brands. If I had one account, it would depend on the business type (i.e. who my clients are, retail vs. company's or publications).

Re: FB - I'm using that just for retail (weddings), and I don't need to generate a lot of traffic to be sucessful - i.e. too much could be a detriment. I want to shoot 20-25 weddings a year, and to do that, need to generate about 200 leads. If I was reaching more people, it might result in fewer qualified leads and more time sifting through folks who are not my clients. For retail, my best business has always come from word of mouth, and I spend my retail marketing time there.

For b2b though, I've found adwords to be fantastic but you definitely have to spend time curating it and staying on top of it in order to make it work.

[Speaker444]

Nowadays, all new businesses are trying to get followers on instagram. And I think this is okay, because normally instagram was created to post pictures and promote somehow your “hobby”. Because of girls that post their bodies and so on we think that it is a stupid app, but it’s not true. Of course this new businesses use special apps to accumulate popularity. This services provides unlimited auto like instagram service  and gives to their customers an opportunity to earn more money using their instagram. A lot of companies nowadays are using such services to recruit their acc. It is easy and fast and no so expensive.

[SharonVL]

Nowadays, all new businesses are trying to get followers on instagram. And I think this is okay, because normally instagram was created to post pictures and promote somehow your “hobby”. Because of girls that post their bodies and so on we think that it is a stupid app, but it’s not true. Of course this new businesses use special apps to accumulate popularity. This services provides unlimited auto like instagram service  and gives to their customers an opportunity to earn more money using their instagram. A lot of companies nowadays are using such services to recruit their acc. It is easy and fast and no so expensive.

You will get your account banned using that service. This is bad advice.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

You will get your account banned using that service. This is bad advice.

That was his/her first post here. A shill for the service, most likely.