For one of the biggest social networks currently with over 300 million users and still going strong, Instagram has the most limited sharing features. Ironically, sharing is what social is all about.
For instance, Facebook has the ‘Share‘ button, twitter has the ‘Retweet‘ button, Google+ has its own ‘Share‘ button, Pinterest has the ‘Re-pin’ button – as well as a browser plugin one can use to share photos from websites to a Pinterest board – and so on, but for Instagram there is no such feature.
The only form of sharing that Instagram has, is the sharing of content to Facebook, tumblr, Foursquare and sharing of links to content on Twitter. But even with this, it limits it to just the user who posted the content.
When Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012, it opened up the social network to a wider market by creating a web version (back then Instagram was app-only) and creating an embed option for websites. Despite the backlash, the move proved beneficial as user growth increased. Now 3 years later, users are still waiting for a way to share content within the Instagram app.
For Instagram users, to share a funny video or picture, they have to either tag their friends in the comments, or download a third party app that has a feature to re-post. Tagging a friend is tiresome, especially if you want all your friends and followers to see the photo/video; and going through a third party app complicates a simple process by making a user leave the Instagram app.
What Instagram needs is a simple app to share content in-app, similar to Twitter, Pinterest, etc. Let’s call it the ‘regram’ button. This button shares content while crediting the original user that uploaded it.
Sharing helps users to discover new content and to find interesting user accounts to follow as well. This will also make Instagram more appealing to brand that want to get their message across to potential customers.
