Angela kicks off a Meme on Instagram

"If you're a brand wondering what can be achieved with Instagram and the tiny lens of an iPhone, search #bo2011 and prepare to be amazed..."

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We're delighted to report that Push Creativity's copywriter, Angela Montague, was the originator of the the internet meme #bo2011, as used on social media's latest phenomenon, Instagram.

Instagram is a free iPhone app (soon to be available on Android) that lets you share photographs taken on your phone. Photographs can only be uploaded by phone, but you can look at people’s photo steams through the web. Instagram is a little like Twitter in that you can follow people from anywhere in the world, people can follow you, and there are hashtags to search. But whilst Twitter is all about words, Instagram is all about photos. And it's been a phenomenal success. Ten million users in 355 days, from a company with only 10 employees.

Crucially, Instagram offers several filters to apply to your photos before uploading, giving them an instant retro or artistic look. This, coupled with the many photo-editing apps out there, makes it very easy to turn a phone snap shot into something that catches the eye. A lot of brands are getting pretty excited about the potential of this new app, especially brands that sell on image, like fashion, food, interior design and tourism. As a copywriter specialising in these 'eye candy' industries, and active Instagrammer for almost a year, Angela is in a very good position to help companies harness this new social media colossus. 

And harness it she has already, because the amazing 'Best 2011 of Grids' posted on Instagram under the hashtag #bo2011 started with her.

Here's her first grid, posted on December 28th, and how the meme took off in her own words:

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I made up the tag #bestofAnglo2011, wandered back through my stream and tagged my favourite shots with it. I stopped tagging when I had made an IG-friendly square of images. Turns out that you need 16 shots to do make a square, 4x4, who'd have thought? I shared the grid and invited people to explore my personal 'best of' tag, like wrapping paper the blur was designed to add an element of surprise when people clicked the tag to see my 16 images in their own mini stream. 

An End of Year Review is an obvious thing to do, but I also did this because I had a few images from early on in the year that I was really proud of and wanted to parade again. Equally, I knew I had missed lots of other people's best shots from the year (because I just can't be on IG that much), so I threw out the invite for others to make a grid. I did not include instructions, thinking it was obvious how to make the grid (I need to remember not everyone is a geek like me!).

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Then one of my followers ForwardTumble suggested using #bo2011 for the grid shots only, so they could be browsed all in one place. 

Then a few friends, with many more followers than me, did one:

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And things started to pick up speed. When it got to about 50 grids, I lobbed some proper instructions into the #bo2011 tag, because many people were asking 'what app did you use' (you don't need an app!),  because some people were putting individual shots in with the grids (grrrr) and because the part ForwardTumble and I had played in creating the meme was getting lost in the stampede. 

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And in a few days a little idea I expected to be taken up by me and a handful of followers went from 50 grids by the end of day one, to 750 by the start of New Year's Eve to 1400 by the end of New Year's Day. 

So a huge thank you to everyone for doing it! I started off liking every image but there are now too many to do that, but in my heart I have. 

The #Bo2011 tag is the ultimate box of chocolates. It's the best of the best of Instagram. It shows just how stunning iPhone photography can be. It's also demonstrates the huge difference in creativity that people can achieve with the same tool. I've seen girds full of bright coloured skies, macro insects, soft sepia Earlybirds, hard black and white architecture, the same puppy getting bigger and just balloons. It's a fascinating gallery I'll keep coming back to. 

If you're a brand wondering what can be achieved with Instagram and the tiny lens of an iPhone, search #bo2011 and prepare to be amazed...

And - hey presto - you can browse the tag right here: #bo2011

You can also look at Angela's latest Instagram photographs here http://instagrid.me/anglo/

And if your brand wants to harness the power of Instagram, you'd better talk to Angela. Just click through to our website for full contact details and an email form. 

Here are some screen shots of the many, many grids out there. We're sure you'll agree they look glorious all together.

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