Election coverage via Instagram: does it work?

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms of our generation. With over one-billion monthly active users, the opportunity to reach the masses is at our fingertips.

Over the last week, I had the opportunity to experiment with Instagram as an election coverage tool. My initial thought was that this would be a challenge, especially since I would prefer to use Twitter for this kind of work.

Instagram offers reporters the opportunity to post photos and videos that pertain to their story. This can be helpful and informative, but I think it may be less effective than other platforms. When it comes to things like election coverage, society depends on live updates, which is not easy to accomplish with Instagram.

Twitter is a better channel for this kind of work because it allows journalists to communicate with their followers in real time. With Instagram, posting too much can overcrowd the feed and cause information to get lost. Using the “story” feature on Instagram may offer a solution to this problem, but I still find it slightly ineffective.

Covering the election reminded me that staying on top of story developments is extremely important. You don’t want to miss anything. This comes with making sure that the sources you’re watching are accurate. Posting incorrect information is a big no-no, even if you have the ability to fix it later.

Watching such an important event closely takes a lot of time, organization, and research. It was a tough task, but after the fact, I learned even more about how important it is to stay informed.