One of the social media success stories of 2011 was easily the photo-sharing app Instagram.   Despite only running on Apple ‘iDevices’, Instagram boss Kevin Systrom reckoned he had 16+ million users at Christmas.

Post Christmas sign-ups combined with Apple naming Instagram app of the year means that total is probably not far off 20 million by now.  And the company estimates that the Android version finally in the works will result in the numbers doubling.

One of the most interesting things about Instagram, is its community, which unlike many other early stage social networks doesn’t consist exclusively of people who work in tech or marketing.

Thanks to Instagram allowing its users the kind of freedom Facebook won’t, that community has also created a fairly unique sub-culture, which it is worth any marketer understanding:

The etiquette of posting and hash-tags

Instagram has often been described as a visual Twitter.  Like Twitter, most feeds are ‘open’ and you don’t have to follow someone for them to follow you.

Like Twitter, you refer to other users by putting an @ in front of their username.  And like Twitter, hash-tags are added to posts to denote topics.

However, as Instagram users aren’t restricted to 140 characters, a lot of hash-tags can be added – up to 30.  As a result, it is worth knowing what a giant list of hash-tags under someone’s post actually means.

They will denote one of several things:

• • The 3rd party app used to edit the photo  There is now a whole eco-system of iPhone compatible camera apps, for example #lenslight, #snapseed or #dynamiclight

• • The location, e.g #london, #londonlife or #thames

• • If the image is being tagged against a competition, for example #instahub or #prestige_challenge01

• • The situation, one example is pictures of people on public transport – #sneakycommutershot

• • Whatever is being taken #airplane, or (in 6600+ cases!) #powerlineporn

• • Finally, images are often tagged against Instagramer groups – #igerslondon, #rebelseurope, #implus   More on these in a minute

Instagram communities

Over the past year, a range of Instagramer communities have sprung up.

Some exist purely on Instagram, some now have a Facebook and web presence, while the oldest group, Instagramers, arranges off-line meet ups.

By and large these groups have been created by genuine enthusiasts who aren’t super-fans or brand ambassadors on other sites, which is what makes them immediately interesting.

Scrolling through you will see mums, academics, musicians, amateur photographers (as you’d expect), students, church ministers, medical workers – but not a lot of people who work in social media, PR or advertising agencies.

The biggest and most established group is ‘Instagramers’, which has just celebrated its 1st birthday.

This is a group we’ve worked with a lot at Rabbit for bmibaby, and over the past few months other brands ranging from Puma to Ford have got involved with them.   Instagramers works through a system of 240 country and city-wide groups, with many being in emerging economies.

For example, the top Instagramer groups measured in number of tagged images are igersmanila (405,529 photos), igersbrazil (128,830) and igersturkey (116,32) )

Instagramers has a website which features members and provides tips, for example on different apps.  Different country and city chapters also organise photo challenges and arrange meet-ups or photo-walks.

In addition to Instagramers, there are now a number of ‘closed’ groups.  Some examples – ‘Gang Family’, ‘Implus’ and ‘Rebels Alliance.’

Generally they operate on a number of different levels.

Many run competitions open to anyone.   And then they all have a private feed, each with anywhere from 150 to 500 members, which you have to apply to join.

Fairly tribal in nature with Instagramers mentioning memberships in their profiles, the closed groups are designed to offer support by liking and commenting on each other’s posts, and very often they also organise ‘pop’ sessions.

Popping and the popular page

‘Popping’ in Instagram parlance means getting your post onto the popular tab of the app.

In addition to the groups above, there are a number of Instagram feeds that are there purely to help members ‘pop.’   They are all closed, which means you have to apply to join, and most cap members at between 150-200 members.

On a given day they then release a hashtag and time to post.   Members upload their photos at the appointed time and both like and comment each others pictures on mass.

Are the pop groups a form of cheating?

To answer that question, it is worth knowing how the popular page works.

Getting on the popular page isn’t about the total number of likes you get.  Rather it is all about how quickly you get them.

Sometimes as little as 50 likes will be enough, so long as you get them within minutes of your post being uploaded.   At other times, 200 won’t suffice, it all depends on the time of day.

However, by and large it is almost impossible for a normal user with less than 1000 followers to get on the popular tab, especially if the likes come in during the course of a day and your followers are spread across different time zones.

As a result, many of the pop groups actually claim to be taking back the popular tab for their members.

Also, having taken part in several of these, the pop sessions inject a gaming element into Instagram and quite simply are fun.   Most importantly, they are social in the real sense of the word, as the aim is to help others who then in turn help you.

Why are communities important?

Instagram’s impressive user numbers will result in it joining the first tier of social networks alongside Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ that are on every marketer’s radar.

However, as shown above, the Instagram communities have developed ways of doing things that you won’t’ see on other networks and simply releasing your campaign into the wild won’t work.

As with other forms of social media, working with the community makes a huge difference.   For example, many online campaigns will struggle to get more than a few hundred submissions, especially if they involve user-generated content.

For bmibaby however, we worked with Instagramer groups around Europe from the start, resulting in almost 20,000 images (and counting) being tagged and uploaded around the campaign – a phenomenal response rate, that is due to factoring in the community from the start.

Dirk Singer is a director of social media agency Rabbit and an Instagram fanatic (Instagram ID – @dirktherabbit)