Instagram

Social Media platform 1: Instagram

What purpose would you use it for?

Instagram’s main use is for sharing photos/videos among friends/followers. Instagram is also used for advertising and promotion campaigns. The main purpose of Instagram is to allow users to connect with friends, share interests and share photos/videos.

What aspects of its design can you personalize?

Instagram offers each user a lot of personalisation tools. Giving each user a personal profile, which can be set to public or private. On the app you can edit your name/handle, your profile photo and your personal information statement/bio. There are also fields that allow you to input an email address, contact number and location.

How can you connect with other users?

Users are connected via a follower system. It gives you the ability to follow friends, family members, colleagues, celebrities and even companies/brands. Instagram also gives you an option to sync your account to your contacts and other various social media networks, this gives you an option to the follow those people.

What tools can you use within the site (e.g tagging, linking, social groups) and describe their function.

Tag/Hashtag - This gives you the ability to tag fellow users to your posts and hashtag allows you to tag similar interests to your posts (#hashtag)

Like/Heart - This is where you can like/heart someone else’s posts. It will notify anyone who’s post you have liked and vice versa also telling you who has reacted to your posts.

Comment - Commenting is the ability to share your opinions on someone else’s posts.

Direct messages - Instagram also allows you to private message fellow users, so that only the person sending/receiving the message can view it.

Filters - Instagram allows you to add professional photography filters. This is when you can change photos to black and white and certain other filters.

Stories - Your Instagram story is a place where you can post about your day to day to life and it will go on to your story rather than your news-feed. Stories can be adjusted to the amount of time they can be viewed for with the maximum being 24 hours.

Blocking - If there is a user who you no longer wish to see or want them not to be able to see your account, then you can block them. This stops the person who is blocked from even being able to find your account.

Follow - Following other users is a way to have their photos/videos appear on your news-feed.

Outline the key issues surrounding social media etiquette

Instagram has a strict policy against copyright. This means that you are only allowed to post your own content or content that you have permission to publish. They also have strict views against respecting other members by following the law. This means you are not allowed to have homophobia, racism and any other form of hate.