In what must be one of the least surprising developments in recent social media history, celebrities have been found using Instagram… to place commercials, adverts and endorsements. Even though Instagram doesn’t have ads, officially.

Among many others, Beyonce is doing it for Pepsi; Kim Kardashian is doing it for her own tanning product and Nicole Richie is doing it for Unilever hair care product, Suave.

…

The real scandal, if there is one, is that it is being done so crassly and badly. 

Wait, you mean it’s not good enough to get a celeb (any celeb!) to take a shitty pic with their iPhone, add a line of inane copy and #hashtag #everything? 

At Jam, we’ve just kicked off an instagram modelling competition to kick off the new series of Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model. The competition is being judged by BINTM hosts Dannii Minogue and Elle MacPherson an the winner is going to feature on the series premiere - amongst other prizes. 

We think this is an example of doing Instagram right. 

We’ve tapped into an existing user behaviour (everybody loves a #selfie), harnessed the celebrity’s promo power to amplify the message on Twitter and TV in a natural manner and have offered contestants an adequate reward.

And, most importantly, at every step along the way we’ve taken pains to make the customer journey as simple as possible. 

Britons spent less time watching television, reading books or browsing social media sites than in previous years’ studies, but spending was up across both online and offline media.

The increased penetration of smartphones and tablets was the driving factor in increasing digital expenditure. Online gaming and e-books took the largest  share here, while spending on paid apps doubled to just over £2 a year.

Traditional media, however, continued to account for the greatest share of spending on content, with television leading the way at around £10 a month.

People are willing to pay real money for really good content.

Shocking, right? 

Anyone claiming Android is ‘crushing’ Apple because Android has a higher market share is either actively trying to obscure the truth or just doesn’t know what they’re talking about:

Scoring by market share alone and ignoring profit is like saying that a baseball team won because it had more hits when the other team scored more runs. Scoring by market share alone and ignoring profit is like saying that a football team won because it gained more yards when the other team scored more points. Scoring by market share alone and ignoring profit is like saying that a hockey team won because it had more shots on goal when the other team had more goals.

Market share without context is not only useless, it is worse than useless because it is likely to be misinterpreted.