Instagram

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Instagram from Facebook, Fake Story Views, and Russian Growth Hackers

Andrew Orr ·

Some Instagram from Facebook users have noticed views on their Story from accounts that don’t follow them and seemed to be Russian. Instagram said it’s aware of the issue.

It also said this inauthentic activity is not related to misinformation campaigns but is rather a new growth hacking tactic — which involves accounts paying third parties to try to boost their profile via the medium of fake likes, followers and comments (in this case by generating inauthentic activity by watching the Instagram Stories of people they have no real interest in in the hopes that’ll help them pass off as real and net them more followers).

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Chtrbox Exposes Instagram Influencer Database

Andrew Orr ·

Chtrbox, a social media marketing firm based in Mumbai, India, exposed an Instagram influencer database online.

Each record in the database contained a record that calculated the worth of each account, based off the number of followers, engagement, reach, likes and shares they had. This was used as a metric to determine how much the company could pay an Instagram celebrity or influencer to post an ad.

At the time of the writing there were 49 million database records, but was increasing by the hour. The database has since been pulled offline.

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Some Instragram Meme Accounts Want to Unionize

Charlotte Henry ·

Left-wing memes are often very popular on Instagram. They have even made some of the people who share them quite well-off. Now some of those creators want to form a union, according to Vox.

The union, the first major organizing effort for professional meme creators on Instagram, is made up of that latter group, and now has thousands of followers on its official account and an open application process for new members. As Taylor Lorenz notes in the Atlantic, it will probably never be recognized by the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that governs unions, but the organizing drive is still very real: Not only does it use traditional union organizing tactics, but the memers have concrete demands they want Instagram to agree to. And with growing membership, they’ll likely have a bit of leverage.

Jumbo Privacy Assistant Can Manage Your Social Media
Cool Stuff Found

Jumbo Privacy Assistant Can Manage Your Social Media

Andrew Orr ·

Jumbo is a privacy assistant that can manage your social media. It can delete your old tweets, manage your Facebook privacy settings, delete your Google search history, and delete your Alexa voice recordings. Jumbo has no servers, so your data doesn’t leave your iPhone. When it comes to deleting tweets, there are several options to choose from, like tweets from the past day, week, month, and year. Due to Twitter’s API limitations, Jumbo can only clean 3,200 tweets at a time. Instagram and Tinder are coming soon to the app, so you can clean your Instagram photos and videos, and delete Tinder matches and messages. Personally, I also hope support for deleting Reddit posts and comments will come in the future. App Store: Free

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Was the Facebook Outage Linked to This Criminal Investigation?

Andrew Orr ·

Conspiracy theory time. Yesterday Facebook suffered its biggest outage in its entire history. Other affiliated services like Instagram and WhatsApp were also affected. Facebook is also under a federal criminal investigation over its data sharing practices. Do you think the outage had anything to do with law enforcement seizing some of the company’s servers?

“We are cooperating with investigators and take those probes seriously,” a Facebook spokesman said in a statement. “We’ve provided public testimony, answered questions and pledged that we will continue to do so.”

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Delete Your Instagram Pics to Fly JetBlue Free

Andrew Orr ·

JetBlue is introducing a contest. Three winners can fly JetBlue free for a year if they delete all of their Instagram photos and post a new photo using a JetBlue template.

Upload and customize your image with the tool below,then download and post to Instagram with @JETBLUE and#ALLYOUCANJETSWEEPSTAKES before 9:00am EST on 3/8/2019. Keep your Instagram posts cleared, except for your newly uploaded ALL YOU CAN ___ image, until 11:59pm EST on 3/8/2019 to be eligible to win.

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Millennials Should Kill The Medical Industrial Complex

Andrew Orr ·

Big Pharma isn’t satisfied with old-fashioned television ads. Now they’re partnering with Instagram influencers.

In a pink tutu against a pink backdrop, Erin Ziering, wife of former 90210 star Ian Ziering, advertises Allergan breast implants and Botox side by side in a December 2018 post — the same month the company pulled its textured implants from European markets in response to a notice from the Food and Drug Administration that individuals with breast implants are at risk of developing breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma (BIA-ALCL).

Let’s put the “medical industrial complex” on the list of things millennials should kill. Maybe then we wouldn’t have Goldman Sachs asking whether curing patients is sustainable.

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Instagram Fundraisers Want Your Credit Card Information

Andrew Orr ·

Instagram Fundraisers will let you easily donate to non-profit organizations on the platform. It’s also a way for Facebook to get its hands on your credit card information.

New code and imagery dug out of Instagram’s Android app reveals how the Fundraiser stickers will allow you to search for nonprofits and add a Donate button for them to your Instagram Story. After you’ve donated to something once, Instagram could offer instant checkout on stuff you want to buy using the same payment details.

Facebook tried to get banks to give up your data, but now it will have to settle for this instead.

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Weed Influencers Online are Helping Firms Get Around Advertising Regulations

Charlotte Henry ·

Weed firms are using online influencers to get around rules that prohibit the marketing of cannabis, even in U.S. states where the drug is legal. These influencers tend to be young women, who post on Instagram and YouTube, according to a report in Wired. Content can range from confessional videos to product reviews. Even though YouTube said it prohibits content around regulated substances like marijuana and removes the videos when it discovers them, firms marketing the products are benefiting from the influencers’ work.

For marketing agencies and companies selling cannabis products, influencers have been a boon – a creative way to get around regulations, with the added impression of authenticity. Typically, the more people that are looking at your product, or your posts, the better. But as public and legal attitudes to cannabis have shifted, the subcultures immersed in it are being subject to more scrutiny than before.

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Amount Ad-Buyers Spend on Instagram Digital Video to Double

Charlotte Henry ·

The share of ad-buyers’ digital video budgets that is spent on Instagram will double from 2018 to 2020. Bloomberg News reported on a new survey by financial services firm Cowen. It found that 61% of the respondents, who collectively represented approximately $14 billion in ad spend, consider the photo-sharing app the go-to platform for launching a campaign targetting 13 to 34 year-olds.

“Stories” — a relatively new Instagram feature — are helping to grow the app into a campaign favorite. Instagram Stories appear “poised for greater adoption” as more ad buyers allocated some portion of their spend to the feature in 2018 than the year prior, said Cowen’s John Blackledge in a note. Instagram even beat out TV in this younger target group, a medium only 3 percent of respondents said was a primary platform.