A more interesting use case, he suggested, is for brand contests with user-submitted photos, with Instagram Direct as the photo collection mechanism.
One winner of the branding contest gets to go to South Africa to visit the community, etc. etc.
I recommend putting the native or custom apps most crucial to your business above the fold, so coupons for ecommerce brands, contests for consumer packaged good companies, events for promoters, etc.
"The Great American History Puzzle" is a brand new contest sponsored by The Smithsonian that will run through the month of October, challenging people to crack codes, uncover hidden clues, unscramble secret messages, and reveal passwords related to our nation's past.
Sadly not everyone agrees, with Conchita recently facing a transphobic backlash online, as conservative protesters in Russia, Armenia and Belarus branded the contest a "hotbed of sodomy".
Shycast and Bix (acquired by Yahoo) are also experimenting with brand based contests, albeit through video (and Shycast is also a social network).
If a retailer focuses on a question of customer satisfaction, they come up with different answers than if they focus on other things like brand advertising, contests and other events.
Vitrue says it is also going to incorporate a voting element into the mix as well, which will let brands run contests around the Instagram content.
Pramati, the maker of Tell-A-Friend, plans to monetize the widget with a premium version that allows for branding and contests.
"We're not just an analytics product," he explains, "we're a promotions product". The company helps brands run contests, sweepstakes and other promotions on Pinterest, and is now brainstorming with its customers on even more initiatives like an email marketing solution that sends out personalized emails based on a user's pins, for example.
