One hundred thirty million people share photos and videos on Instagram every month, many of them posting their favorite hobbies, locations, and brands. Users share 45 million photos per day. One app is connecting you with brands to get rewards for those pictures; perks in exchange for letting brands use your Instagram photos in ad campaigns.
SnapMyAd is a free iOS app rewarding brand enthusiasts for their photos. Users sign in with their Instagram profiles and pull photos into the app. They then search which brands to interact with and for what type of perk they're willing to give up pictures. A scoring system based on likes helps pick winners. Freebies include Amazon gift cards, coffee and magazine subscriptions, all for posting content you normally would.
Brands can push specific product sales, promotions and events for consumers to take photos of, and decide which pictures they want. Once both parties agree on a perk, brands can use those photos in campaigns. When users and brands have swapped prizes, SnapMyAd sends brands ads along with the email and home address of users. A recent exchange came from the fashion blog Hello Perfect, which gave out a subscription to InStyle for the winner of a photo contest defining what "perfect" is.
"It’s a whole new way to harvest these ads and focus these consumers on what type of ads to make for their brand," explains co-founder Josh Lee.
Lee and his wife Yvette came up with the idea last year after flying through a tropical storm in Florida. The pair snapped a photo of the wing of the plane and posted on Instagram, praising the airline despite the turbulence.
"It occurred to me that I just created an ad," Lee told Mashable. "SnapMyAd was born that morning."
Lee says he wanted to create a two-way flow benefiting both sides, while also helping eliminate Instagram spam, a growing problem. Plus, he says users can promote brand-centric photos that they wouldn't necessarily share with their Instagram followers.
Since its May launch, the app has over 1,000 downloads, and 2,000 pictures submitted. The service doesn't have in-app ads, nor do they sell user data to third-parties. SnapMyAd only gets paid from brands; from $500 up to $2,500 per promotion. The company is not yet profitable. The Lees spent the last year bootstrapping, even selling their 1929 Ford Hot Rod. They used that money to hire the Happy Fun Corp to develop the app and employ contractors.
Currently, the half a dozen brands on-board are more niche than household, including an online children's department store (CookiesKids), a coconut oil company (Kelapo Coconut), and an online sports store (Lowest First Sports). Promos for Fortune 500s such as Coke and Nike have been created to show brands what the app can do.
Lee says big deals are in development, however: "We are talking with some huge brands that have millions of followers on Instagram and Facebook who will really push us to scale quickly."
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