Instagram is great but a platform is only as good as its users. As Casey says, Instagram is not about the pictures, it’s about the sharing which allows everybody to peer into the lives of interesting people.

A brilliant example is a difference between Rick Ross’s Instagram versus that of Justin Bieber. While RR’s feed is a visual story of his fascinating life the Biebs is too busy taking pictures of himself all the time… there is no story!

Here is Casey Neistat‘s Rules for keeping Instagram great.

1. Find your theme and share it.
2. Easy with the hashtags, nobody cares (I’m guilty here!)
3. Don’t tag people in their own pictures.
4. Asking people to follow you is not ok, ever.
5. Easy on the tilt-shift. (oops!)
6. The cropping tool is there, use it!
7. Your baby is cute but nobody needs to see 10 pictures.

Casey’s closing comments are critical to keeping Instagram great. A social networks lifespans are pretty short, they come and go but they only exist as long as we keep it awesome so let’s work together to do so.