Now there’s an opportunity to share the stories of your faith communities, in pictures! Snap an appropriate cell phone image, give it a caption, add a “hashtag,” and send it off to others, via Instagram.
The Communications Ministry Team has just begun to use the popular mobile and computer application. Instagram enables everyone to share the stories of exciting ministries, within seconds. Everyone with a cell phone or tablet with a camera, or a computer with an Internet connection, can now be a photojournalist and reporter.
“We’ve had a dream of having field reporters,” said Dr. Arthur McClanahan, the Conference’s Director of Communications. “For a while we had ‘stringers’ in several districts and provided them with inexpensive pocket cameras. Now, with Instagram we’re not limited to a few people in specific places, needing to drive to get to special events. A person’s cell phone camera, a free app, a quick description, and an added ‘#iaumc’ (without the quotes) will send a photo to an Iowa Conference visual archive.”
“We’ll be able to cover the for the 2013 session of the Iowa Annual Conference in a bigger, better way,” Dr. McClanahan added. “By adding the hashtag #iaumc2013 the 1,600 United Methodists who will be at the 170th annual session, at Hy-Vee Hall, in June, will be able to jointly contribute to the most complete photo coverage ever! ”
According to Wikipedia, “Instagram is an online photo-sharing and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures, apply digital filters to them, and share them on a variety of social networking services, such as media sites including Facebook or Twitter. Instagram was launched in October 2010. The service rapidly gained popularity, with over 100 million registered users (and around 90 million monthly active users) as of January 2013. Instagram is distributed through the Apple App Store and Google Play" and thorugh Instagram.com
So, start taking pictures that tell faith stories or at a gathering of your faith community, load them into Instagram, add a caption including the hashtag #iaumc and then tap the green share button!