THE POWER OF THE PLATFORM: VISUAL STORYTELLING ON SOCIAL NETWORKS 91 To which Intel responded with: “@lenovo Awww . . . were blushing! Thanks for the Valentines Day love.” Banter like this shows the brand’s human side, its creativity, and its willingness to engage its partners and customers in the real-time dialogue. Twitter has features that set it apart from other social media networks: it can generate buzz very quickly thanks to the trending element and the Promoted Trends and Tweets facilities, and individuals and organizations can have millions of fans so tweets can go viral almost instantly if they are picked up by influential figures. Using hashtags is a well-known method of getting your promotion out there to your fans and followers, but com- bining it with an image can encourage people to get creative and get the most out of this fast-moving network. Instagram The photo sharing newcomer Instagram is changing the way we interact with images and with the brands that post them. Although it is primar- ily a mobile-based app, this hasn’t halted its spectacular growth since it launched in October 2010: it currently has 130 million monthly active users. Instagram photos (which are characteristically square, with artistic digital filters applied to them) can be viewed through Instagram or shared through sites such as Facebook (which owns it) or Twitter. Instagram relies on users’ posting hashtags with their images, which allows people to discover related images or search for something very specific. But the hashtags also work through other supporting sites like Twitter to make it a social network that stands alone or that integrates seamlessly into other platforms. Now that Instagram has added the ability to record and share video directly from the platform to social media, the feature is already beating Vine91 in the battle to attract the biggest brands. The fact that Instagram is already heavily used by brands will help its new video feature be adopted quickly by companies looking for new ways to market products