How to Use it in Your Next Investigation
More than 95 million photos are uploaded to Instagram every day,(as of November 2019). People love to look at pictures in social media and they love to share them. Most Instagram photos are uploaded in the moment of experience, right from a mobile phone. This can be very telling when conducting an investigation around a missing person, a criminal, or even someone who you are trying to serve papers to. Paying attention to the details of the photo is especially helpful. Who are they with? What is in the background? Can you tell what the weather is like?
As an added feature, Instagram stories was launched in 2016 and allows users to upload photos and short videos that will disappear in 24 hours. Yes, like the social platform, SnapChat. Timing is everything and that is where continual monitoring of a site comes in handy.
Not only can Instagram be helpful in your online research, it is also a great place to promote your business. For now, let’s dig in deeper in this overlooked platform for the investigation world.
Starting with the name one chooses when creating a profile, users are encouraged to use any combination of numbers, capital letters, lowercase letters and underscores. Usernames cannot exceed 20 characters. So, as you can see knowing your POI’s full name may not be of help unless they use it publicly in their profile. A good rule of thumb is that most people reuse their usernames. Chances are if you know one, you will uncover other platforms with the same username in your search.
There are even username generators online that help new users create an username that “gets them noticed”. Spin xo is just one of many sites.
As you can see, finding a POI’s user name can be a challenge. Once you do some digging, and you find the profile, the following searching sites can be used to make digging in easier:
As with every other social media account, marketing dollars are a high priority. In order to get that revenue, the site must show ROI., which includes how may people engage. There are many tools to use for this purpose.
Don’t forget to check Instagram!