Instagram is another social media tool that is gaining popularity within the trucking industry. It is an online photo sharing, video sharing and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, apply digital filters for them and share them on a variety of social networking services like Twitter and Facebook.
The application is very similar to Twitter in how it's used. Users have handles. Hashtags (#) are used in the same way as in Twitter. For example you can search #trucking and hundreds of pictures will come up and you can choose which ones to look at and which users to follow.
I use the #trucking to find users all over the world who share photos of their trucking operation. I've follow users who operate in Norway, Australia, South Africa and the far reaches of northwestern Canada. It's great to see the photos of their trucks, trailers and different landscapes than what I'm used to. I've also used #carhauling and #stepdeck to find more specialized photos of users that operate the same equipment as I do.
Most of the major truck manufacturers and trucking companies are gaining a presence on Instagram. With the ease of picture sharing with the other major social media players, it's easy to see why Instagram is gaining popularity so quickly. "A picture is worth a thousand words" and with social media text being so limited, a picture is a more proficient way to get a message across sometimes.