Instagram: A Visual View of the Southeastern Conference

INTRODUCTIONInstagram has become a staple in the realm of social media as the fastest growing social network globally with a 23% increase in active users from July 2013 to January 2014 (Lunden, 2014). Instagram, having launched in 2010, is a mobile-based photo and video sharing application that has eclipsed more than 20 billion total photos posted by more than 200 million monthly active users, compared to 30 million just two years prior (Instagram, 2014). The simplistic, filter-based application concept has been utilized by sport organizations, athletes, and fans who are part of the users who "like" 1.6 billion photos and post 60 billion photos daily (Instagram, 2014). The photos can also be shared simultaneously on other social media sites (i.e., Facebook and Twitter) allowing for a broader use of the medium across the vast social media landscape. Instagram debuted a video feature in June 2013 that allowed users to expand on what had been an image-exclusive application (Instagram, 2013). This allows for more freedom and flexibility that sport organizations can use to share replays or other content on the accounts that was not previously possible. The 15-second time limit for video compliments the "snapshot" nature of Instagram as a social network and the videos can be edited with the same filters available for images.Academic research involving Instagram in the area of sport is limited because of the more recent rise of the platform, and with most research being focused toward Twitter. The newness of the platform though does not discount its value as the Sports Business Journal called Instagram, "the go-to social media choice for teams, fans at events" (Ives, 2014, p. 12). Its value is evident as Instagram was acquired by Facebook for $1 billion in 2012 making it Facebook's largest acquisition at the time (Rusli, 2012). There is a call for research of photo-sharing social media applications, especially Instagram, as expanding the types of photos being examined could help strengthen future conclusions and understanding of the medium (Lebel & Danylchuk, 2014). Pew Internet Research (2013) found that photo sharing online and on mobile devices grew at a rate of 54% from 2012 to 2013. The same study showed that 18% of all cell phone users are now using Instagram on their mobile devices (Pew, 2013). Instagram is clearly a part of the social media landscape and is continuing to grow. Research into how Instagram is being utilized by sport organizations is necessary.This study aims to examine how collegiate athletic departments of the Southeastern Conference have begun to use Instagram as part of each school's respective social media strategy. The Southeastern Conference is one of the premier athletics conferences in the NCAA, having been notably successful in football, the NCAA's highest revenue-generating sport (Smith, 2014). The SEC also boasts some of the top budgets in collegiate sports and thus would have the resources to devote technology and employees to using Instagram (College Finances, 2014). Media relations and marketing professionals are always searching for ways to use social media to connect with fans, and Instagram has become one unique way of sharing each athletics program in an appealing, visual format. Using research relating to "image power" and the limited research completed on Instagram in non-sport settings, the purpose of this thematic analysis is to discover how Southeastern Conference athletic departments are using Instagram, specifically looking into both the number of images and videos shared and the variety of content the fans can see when following the accounts. Instagram serves the function of bypassing traditional news outlets and allows sport organizations to directly interact with the public and other stakeholders (Price, Harrington, & Hall, 2013) as well as a way for organizations to break barriers with fans and consumers (Price, et al., 2013). Instagram use "is significant in that it signals a mobile, visually predominant, ostensibly organic mode of sharing organizational image which differs qualitatively from professional photography in the support of branded communication" (McNely, 2012, p. …