InstaTrain and Friend or Follow Reviewed!

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Hadn't really poked around much to see what kind of tools there are out there to assist you with your Instagram account. So I googled away and found the “InstaTrain” that promised tons of followers in seconds! Suspecting that this was a setup similar to “Seed” for Twitter (is that even still around?), I investigated: 

Board the train! Become a VIP! Do not miss out on our summer discount!

You know the old saying “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is?” Uh huh.

So here’s how it works. You can get on the train for free by tweeting or posting kudos for Instatrain or you can pay to be a VIP and get “hundreds/thousands” of followers after going through a few easy steps. Then, you “board the train”. You may have to wait a couple minutes and the countdown builds up the excitement. Then it happens…All Aboard!

And it’s true! For free, you WILL get “instant” followers. 

Wow, huh?

Ah wait a minute; there’s a punchline, right?

Yep.

My feed was immediately filled with: Young girls snapping photos of themselves, phone in hand, messages in Arabic, photos that weren’t exactly high quality, “colorful” language, poor use of English, and need I go on?

I also noticed that a majority of my new follower’s handles had a “_” in it @iam_kayy is one example. Then there were a bunch that boasted their intelligence by their names: @wakyweirdo @xogeniuss @butburnasinner.

My followers went up rapidly. Now, I only had about 190 followers and suddenly it was 230! Wow! Then, as soon as the followers built up, the number started going down again; deflating by half within minutes. 

Folks, if you've ever checked out Seed, it works the same way. 

The question is: Do you really need these people? Big thumbs down here. 

My suggestion is that you build your followers by finding people who post photos that you enjoy. Simple as that! You can find them through your friends, through hashtags, or as links from other social networks.

Now, back to the mini-mess I made for myself: Luckily, you can clean up very easily with the Friend or Follow for Instagram! Didn't know it existed; 
had used the version for Twitter in the past! They give you three views: 

• Following: The ones you follow that don't follow you back. Was surprised that several of my friends were not following me back (well okay, some appear to not be active on Instagram!).
• Fans: They follow you and you aren't following back.
• Friends: The feeling is mutual.

Sigh of relief: Was able to clean up my account in a jiffy! I highly recommend this tool! Wish they had a version for Pinterest! 

In the early 90's The Farm sang about a train that we really like; a groovy train! If you need groovy strategy for your business, visit us at our website, or say hello on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. 

How Come, Social Media?

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Sometimes while pondering the meaning of life my mind strays to other matters, namely the state of affairs with social media. It’s in most of our faces every day and keeps many of us captive whether we like it or not. The streams of information whiz by chock full of pics of grumpy cat, words that most of us don’t say in public, news about the latest controversy or a friend in need who’s having a bad day. 

However, for many of us that get paid for our social media prowess, our minds go a little deeper into what’s happening out there in cyberspace. Social media continues to frazzle and frustrate us as we forge through the muck. 

So here's just a few frustrations:  

Dear Facebook: How come we can edit the text on posts that have photos in them or posts that are text only yet we can’t edit our words when it’s a video? Folks, you are aware of the capabilities to edit, no? Suppose we could say two out of three ain’t bad. 

Why does Klout only have a Klout score of 85? Mashable’s score is 89; Techcrunch has a score of 95 and CNN 99. One would think Klout’s Klout would be higher! After all, they know all the workings of their algorithm. Ah, perhaps they are holding back so that they don’t look TOO good!

Customer Service is an attribute associated with Klout’s K’s, yet they never respond to emails or tweets. Who are those people that give them K’s for this? Would love to know if the folks that gave Klout K’s for this have actually had communication with them and broken through the great wall of silence.

Why doesn’t Kred take activity on Google+ into account for calculating your score? Certainly hoping they'll roll in a user’s activity on Google+ soon. And where is Pinterest in regards to both Klout and Kred? Oh, and Klout: Kudos to you for having Instagram included; Kred there’s another one for you to consider.

Facebook, why did you change the friend request methodology so that a message can’t be sent with the request? Okay, this is an oldie but goodie that truly annoys me. Seriously, I would like to know who all these people are that send friend requests to me all the time. Could you at least message me too and explain our alleged connection? And to make matters worse, if I hit ignore Facebook is going to penalize you from friending others. There’s got to be a better way to handle introductions, Facebook!

Why do Facebook users continue to use personal profiles as their business page? There is NO advantage to this; no stats, no opportunity to advertise, and you’ll run out of the ability to add “friends” eventually. For more on this see my past blog about being friends with a movie theater. 

Hello, Google+! Didn’t forget about you. Is there really an advantage to having a page? You don’t provide easy to access stats like Facebook does. It would be nice to have some demographics and regional breakdowns to see who is finding the page. Data on participation would be nice too. And the possibility of advertising if one wanted to do so. I suppose you’ll catch up eventually. 

Neil Young had pondering on his mind when he came out with this song with rockabilly styling back in 1978 (see below). And if you're wonderin' where to learn more about social media and marketing at large don't forget to visit us at our website, or stop by on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.       

Instagram, Facebook, and You.

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You may have heard the news about Facebook buying a “little” app called Instagram. Funny, I just got the app on my phone last week after learning about its availability for us android users. So, I’ve barely checked it out at yet. But I have heard good things about it.






Launched in the Fourth Quarter of 2010, the icon for Instagram resembles an old Polaroid camera complete with nostalgic rainbow stripes.  Kinda makes sense since it provides an easy way to upload photos to various social networks. Speaking of vintage cameras, the Instagram photo shape has a cubed look to it.



Currently, the app has 30 million accounts and the recent launch on android brought over a million downloads in half a day’s time.  And now, a mere year and a half later after intro, the company is sold for 1 billion. Someone’s making money; interestingly enough, sources cite Jack Dorsey (Twitter founder) as an early investor.

What’s up, Facebook?

Could it be that Facebook wants to see more users access the social network when they’re mobile? And Instagram may provide the convenience for people to upload just about anything they feel like snapping, thus encouraging more engagement overall, on mobile, computers, and tablet? And more usage means more eyeballs on advertising on Facebook, thus enabling Facebook to charge more for those ads? Note the key word here is usage, not users since
Facebook is reaching saturation point in many markets.

Or perhaps there were rumblings from other social networks about making a big purchase, namely, of Instagram? A billion dollars’ worth of app just to keep the competition from getting it? Nah.

How ‘bout keeping your social network visible? Staying in the news and looking good for that IPO, perhaps? Could be a contributing reason for purchasing.

Was Instagram pondering adding sharing features to additional social networks besides Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr? Wonder if sharing to Google+ will ever be available. Ah, wait! Google, who acquired a nifty photo editing tool called Picnik a while back is now closing the website. Picnik’s landing page says “Picnik is moving its most popular editing tools and effects to Google+”. Will there be an app forthcoming down the road too?

A message released by Mark Zuckerberg is vague and a snippet of it states, “Now, we'll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests.”

Increased Facebook usage though mobility makes the most sense.

What do you think?

Enjoy this classic Polaroid Swinger commercial. Click here.

This is the “I” entry for the A to Z Blogging Challenge. Here’s G and H.