InstaBest: Statigram vs Pinstagram for better Instagram browsing and management

The Instagram app is one of my favorite social networks and mobile apps, but it has some limitations:

• The experience is limited to mobile devices – not always ideal. 
• Vertical, chronological feed, forcing me to catch up one photo at a time, from newest posts to oldest.
• Minimal filtering – search, but no way to create lists or otherwise filter my feed.

I really enjoy Instagram. I like it enough to seek the best experience possible, so I’ve been testing out different browser-based Instagram viewers. It came down to a close race between Pinstagram and Statigram, and I will probably continue to use both for different reasons, as neither of them is quite perfect yet. If I had to choose one, Statigram probably has the edge for me, but it really depends on your priorities:

• Choose Statigram, if filtering your feed and analytics are key.
• Choose Pinstagram, if you like Pinterest’s design motif and want an iOS app that allows you to browse lots of Instagram photos quickly. 

STATIGRAM
Analytics, filtering and promotion

Statigram is a great tool for the Instagram poweruser and digital nerd, like me. In addition to a clean interface that allows quick browsing and interaction with your whole feed, it offers a wide variety of analytics and infographic reports, ways to promote your account and photos, Instagram contests to enter and even the ability to print your photos. 

While Statigram displays less photos in the browser than Pinstagram (10, as opposed to 15, on my Cinema Display), it allows full interaction with the photos – like, comment, share to other social networks within a grid. This allows me to quickly scan a large portion of my feed, like and comment the few that grab me, and move on. This is perfect for my needs when viewing Instagram in a browser, as I’m usually at work, which means that I don’t have that much time and I’m viewing it on a large monitor. My one gripe, which is not necessarily small, is that you can’t see the captions without maximizing each photo. That seems like a big miss to me.

The top navigation and subnavigation is clear and complete, which holds true for the information architecture across the site. 

The number one killer feature for me is probably the ability to filter my Instagram feed. Unlike Twitter, I don’t believe Instagram should be like drinking from a firehose, so I’m extremely selective about who I follow on this network and really do try to see everyone’s photos. That said, sometimes you just get busy and don’t want to miss the posts from your closest contacts; or sometimes you’re just in the mood to look at food porn and nothing else. Statigram’s solution allows me to create smaller groups of my contacts, which allows me to filter when it makes sense.

The single photo view is great as well, except that I wish I could flip through the feed in this view, instead of having to go back to the grid to zoom in on each one. I like that the caption, location information and a wide variety of sharing options are right below the photo, including Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Tumblr, Pinterest and the ability to get a permalink. In addition, there is a “Repost this” button, which creates an image with the creator’s name and a repost symbol overlayed to email for uploading. The only drawbacks are that it does not appear that you can upload it directly to Instagram from there, so it’s a multi-step process.

On the right side, I like the clean presentation of the user, which links to a Statigram version of the Instagram profile page, complete with stats and that person’s photo library. I also like the clean presentation of tags (all active links to browse similarly tagged photos), likes and comments, with an available comment box. 

Where Statigram really shines is in providing analytics on your Instagram account, in a very pleasing, visual fashion. If you’re like me, you enjoy geeking out on the trends and stats of your social accounts; this allows you to track your effectiveness on the platform in a general way, or to dig deeper into monthly analyses, trends and performance of content (including a pie graph of your usage of filters), engagement, opportunities for optimization, and stats on how you interact with your community.

Another fun feature of Statigram is the ability to export Snapshots of your account. These are infographics and visual representations of stats, trends and recent events that you can export, share and hang on your fridge. Oh, and they’re all formatted for the Instagram square, so you can share them on the network, of course. So meta…

Totally nerdy? Yes. Totally awesome? Definitely. 

Positioning themselves as your partner to truly maximize your Instagram account, Statigram offers options to promote your account, with HTML code, tips, links, plugins to add your feed to Facebook fan pages and other quick solutions that can raise the visibility and engagement with your account. This is a great resource to have, all in one place. 

Finally, Statigram curates a collection of Instagram-based contests that are running, at any given time. I pretty much never enter these, but it’s a good resource for me, as a brand marketing professional, and is another way that they truly are an Instagrammer’s partner for any needs related to the network. They also offer a contest toolkit for marketers. 

Pros:

• Feed filtering
• Well-designed analytics, reports and account snapshots
• Extensive sharing options
• Browse lots of photos quickly
• Interact with photos quickly without having to click through/maximize
• Intuitive, clean, visual interface

Cons:

• No mobile app, although it does look quite good in Mobile Safari
• Can’t see captions on photos in grid view.

 

PINSTAGRAM
Browse, interact and discover with ease in an aesthetically pleasing environment

Pinstagram’s user experience and functionality is quite similar to Statigram, so I’ll be a bit more concise on this one. As stated above, Pinstagram’s interface shows about five more photos on the screen than Statigram and also allows full interaction with the photos within a Pinterest-type grid (hence their name, obviously). It is set on a white background and is very clean throughout, focusing completely on browsing Instagram photos, without the added features of Statigram.

The single photo viewer is not bad, but it does not include the location of the photo (very strange to me) and the sharing features are more limited than Statigram. Each photo contains a link to Stickygram, which allows you to create magnets out of your photos. They must have a partnership. Like Statigram, it also does not allow me to flip through the feed in this view, which is a big miss in both.

The interface also allows me to view a number of suggested “channels”, curated categories that users can submit to by including the hashtags #pinstagram and the #channel_name on Twitter. This is a fun feature, as it allows me to discover new Instagram users that I might want to follow, or allows me to satisfy a specific craving, like food or, professionally, to check in on what brands are doing on the platform.

Pinstagram also has an iPad app, which is pretty solid and offers a similar experience. The navigation and functionality mirror the broswer experience and are pretty straightforward. The first time you open the app, a simple tutorial screen appears, which gives you pretty much all the information you need.

Also, in the app, when a photo is maximized, you can flip through your feed in full screen by swiping left and right, unlike the browser experience. In some moods, this is even better for me than either browser experience and definitely better than the Instagram app experience. The one big miss in the app is that you can’t like photos in the maximized view. Double-clicking doesn’t do it and there’s no heart icon to click. This means you have to close the photo and go back to the grid to like each photo. That seems silly to me.

Pros: 

• Browse lots of photos quickly
• Interact with photos quickly without having to click through/maximize
• Intuitive, clean, visual interface
• Good iPad app

Cons: 

• Can’t create my own lists/filters
• Does not offer analytics on my Instagram account
• Can’t like photos in maximized view in app

CONCLUSION

Deciding which to choose really comes down to your personal style and what is most important to you when browsing your Instagram account. For me, Statigram solves most of the problems and offers most of the features that are most important to me:

• Filtering is really important to me, as I like to control and curate my feeds on all digital platforms.
• I really like looking behind the curtain at what is happening with my content and community. 
• I also like the clean, dark background that Statigram offers, for photos. 

That said, I’ll probably continue to use the Pinstagram app on my iPad, when I want to quickly browse all of the updates to my feed, rather than leisurely work my way through it in the Instagram app. 

What’s your style? Is there another killer app that I’ve missed? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.