December 5, 2013
Reader participation with Instagram
The Vancouver Sun has an amazingly simply way of engaging readers through social media — Instagram photo challenges.
Readers are asked to take pictures and post them to Instagram with a special hashtag. After the deadline, a Sun photographer judges the best and it is published in the newspaper.
The contest costs nothing in infrastructure and very little in time. Since people are constantly posting to Instagram anyway, all they have to do differently is add a hashtag. Professional photographers can easily sort the wheat from the chaff and declare a winner.