Instagram is an app from the United States that lets us share photos, videos, and reels. 2010 was the first year for Instagram. Instagram has become a place where anyone can start a career in fashion, modeling, acting, and other fields. Instagram is used for marketing, advertising, and business. Instagram has things like filters, geotagging, hashtags, and more. Influencers, models, and content creators post something on Instagram to get likes and comments and reach more people worldwide. Many famous content creators or “influencers” started from nothing, and now they are well-known on Instagram and make money through it.
Instagram was different at first because you could only frame content in 640-pixel squares, which was the breadth of the iPhone screen at the time. This rule changed in 2015, and the number of pixels increased to 1080. It also added the option to submit several photographs or videos in a single post and a feature called “Stories,” which works similarly to Snapchat’s major competitor and allows users to post content in a chronological feed that others can view for 24 hours. Five hundred million people have used Stories every day as of January 2019.
It quickly became popular when Insta came out for iOS for the first time in October 2010. One million users signed up in two months, 10 million in a year, and one billion by June 2018.
In April 2012, Facebook Inc. bought the service for about $1 billion in cash and stock. The Android version came out in April 2012, and a limited desktop version came out in November 2012. A Fire OS app came out in June 2014, and a Windows 10 app came out in October 2016.
As of October 2015, more than 40 billion photos had been uploaded. Insta has been praised for how well it has done and is widespread. Still, it has been criticized for making teens’ mental health worse, changing its rules and interface, being accused of censorship, and letting users post illegal or inappropriate content.
The first version of Instagram was made in San Francisco by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. It was called Burbn, a check-in app for mobile devices.
When they understood it was too similar to Foursquare, they changed the app so that users could share photos, a popular feature. The name was changed to Instagram, a compilation of the words “instant camera” and “telegram.”
2010–2011: New beginnings and a lot of money
Systrom performed on Burbn until March 5, 2010, when he, Baseline Ventures, and Andreessen Horowitz closed a $500,000 seed funding round. In October, Josh Riedel was hired as the Community Manager for the company. Shayne Sweeney signed in November as an engineer, and Jessica Zollman joined in August 2011 as a Community Evangelist.
On July 16, 2010., Mike Krieger put an image of South Beach Harbor at Pier 38 on Insta for the very first time.
A few hours later, at 9:24 p.m., Systrom posted his first image of a dog and his girlfriend’s foot. It has been called the first Insta photo imprecisely because its URL begins with an earlier letter. On October 6, 2010, the Insta app for iOS was made available through the App Store.
As part of Insta’s Series A funding, Benchmark Capital, Jack Dorsey, Chris Sacca (through Capital fund), and Adam D’Angelo were said to have given the company $7 million in February 2011.
The deal gave Insta a value of about $20 million. Investors gave Insta $50 million in April 2012, which was worth $500 million at the time. In Instagram’s Series B round of funding, Joshua Kushner was the second-largest investor. His investment firm, Thrive Capital, made two times as much money after Facebook bought Instagram.
Between 2012 and 2014, Facebook bought other companies and added new platforms.
On April 3, 2012, Insta made an app for Android phones. In less than a day, more than a million people downloaded it. Since then, the Android app has had 2 significant updates. The first, in March 2014, cut the application’s file size in half and made it run better. The 2nd, in April 2017, added an offline mode that lets enjoyers see and interact with the subject even when they don’t have a net connection.
At the time of the statement, it was said that 80% of Instagram’s 600 million users lived outside of the U.S. Even though the above features were already available, Instagram said it planned to add more offline features and was “looking into an iOS version.”
On April 9, 2012, Facebook, Inc. purchased Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock, intending to let the company run independently.
On August 14, 2012, Britain’s Office of Fair Trading gave the deal the green light, and on August 22, 2012, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission stopped looking into the contract and let it go through. On September 6, 2012, Instagram and Facebook reached an agreement, and Instagram was bought with $three hundred million in cash and 23 million shares of stock.
CNN says that the deal was made before Facebook went public for the first time. The price is about the same as what Yahoo! paid for Flickr in 2005, which was $35 million.
Mark Zuckerberg stated that Facebook would “build and grow Instagram by itself.” Wired says that the deal made Systrom $400 million.
In November 2012, Instagram introduced website profiles, which let anyone view user feeds with limited functionality from a web browser. Instagram also put out several buttons and badges that link to profiles.
Since the application was first released, it has used the Foursquare API to add names to places. In March 2014, Instagram began testing Facebook Places and switching its technology to use it.
From 2015 to 2017, a Windows app and a redesign
In June 2015, the user interface of the desktop website was changed to be more flat and straightforward, with more space for each photo and a layout similar to Instagram’s mobile website.
Also, there are no longer five pictures in a row; instead, there are only three. The slideshow banner at the top of an enjoyer’s profile page, which randomly changed between seven pictures posted by the user, has been taken down. Also, the profile images that used to be square are now circles.
In April 2016, Instagram made a Windows 10 Mobile app available. Microsoft and the general public had been asking Instagram for years to make an app for the platform.
On November 21, 2013, a beta version of Instagram for Windows Phone 8 was released. You can watch videos and post them on the new app, and you can also watch live streams, album posts, and direct messages. In the same way, in October 2016, an app for Windows 10 PCs and tablets came out. In May, Instagram improved its mobile website by adding the ability to upload photos and a “lightweight” version of the Explore tab.
The look of Instagram changed on May 11, 2016. The app’s enjoyers interface now has a black-and-white flat design concept, and its icon is less skeuomorphic and more abstract, “modern,” and colorful.
In April, someone sent a screenshot to The Verge, which led to rumors that the site was getting a new look. A person from Instagram told the publication then that it was just an idea.
The ability to like comments was added to Instagram on December 6, 2016. But unlike likes on posts, likes on comments don’t appear in the user’s inbox when someone likes what they wrote. The person who made a post can turn off comments if they want to.
Images can be uploaded through the front end of the mobile web as of May 4, 2017. Back then, there were no ways to edit photos or add videos.
The Windows 10 Mobile application was taken off the market in April 2019, but the mobile website is still available as a curb progressive web app (PWA). The app can still be used on PCs and tablets with Windows 10, and in 2020, it will be changed to a PWA.
2018–2019: IGTV, getting free of the like counter, and management changes
In April 2018, Instagram users could download a copy of all the information about them, which was done to follow GDPR rules about moving data from one place to another. On June 20, 2018, IGTV became a separate app for watching videos.
Krieger and Systrom announced they were leaving Instagram in a statement on September 24, 2018. On October 1, 2018, Adam Mosseri was named the new CEO of Instagram.
During Facebook F8, it was said that Instagram would start a pilot program in Canada to hide the number of “likes” on other users’ posts.
Only the person who posted the content first could see how many likes it got. Mosseri stated that this change was made so that Instagram users could “worry a little less about how much likes they get and spend more time linking with the people they care about.” People have stated that having fewer likes than others could make people feel less good about themselves.
In May 2019, the pilot began and was expanded to six more markets in July. In November of 2019, the pilot was made available to everyone worldwide. Also, in July 2019, Instagram stated it would add new features that would make it more difficult for people to harass others or say bad things on the site.
In August 2019, Instagram also began testing how it would work without the “Following” tab. People who use this tablet can see a feed of likes and comments made by people they are following. The change became official in October. Vishal Shah, in charge of products, said that the feature wasn’t used enough and that some users were “surprised” to see their activity in this way.
As of October 2019, Instagram will limit the number of posts you can see in page scrolling mode if you are not signed in. Before this, anyone who wasn’t logged in could see public profiles. After the change, after the user has seen a few posts, a pop-up will ask them to sign in before they can see more content.
From 2020 until now:
Co-Watching is a new feature that was added to Instagram in March 2020. The new feature allows enjoyers to share posts during video calls. Instagram says they rushed the launch of Co-Watching to meet the expectation of joining virtually with friends & family after the COVID-19 pandemic caused people to pull away from each other.
In August 2020, Instagram added something called “Reels.” It’s like the app TikTok in that way. Instagram also added suggested posts in August 2020. After they scroll through posts from the last 48 hours, Instagram shows them related posts from accounts they don’t follow.
Some sources say that TikTok inspired Vertical Stories, a new feature that Instagram began testing in February 2021. In the same month, they also started removing the option to share posts from feeds to stories. In March 2021, Instagram added a new feature that lets four people go live simultaneously.
As part of a new set of rules for keeping kids safe, Instagram said that adults wouldn’t be able to message teenagers who don’t follow them. People in some places could start adding pronouns to their Instagram profiles in May 2021.
On October 4, 2021, Facebook had its worst outage since 2008. Even though Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp, they were also down during the outage. But security experts think that the problem might be related to DNS.
On March 17, 2022, Zuckerberg said that non-fungible tokens would be added to the platform (NFTs). Then, on May 7, 2022, it was said that Instagram would accept non-fungible tokens (NFTs) from the Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, and Flow blockchains. If users linked their wallets to Instagram, they would be able to show off their crypto art, and this would not cost anything.
Let’s talk about the top 10 Instagram influencers you would love to follow.
In this article, we will talk about the following types of famous Indian Instagram users:
- Entertainment influencers
- Influencers in fashion, beauty, and living styles
- Influencers of travel
- Influencers of food
- Influencers in fitness, health, and well-being
KUSHA KAPILA
Kusha Kapila is one of the top Indian Instagram influencers whose name you might see a lot. She started as a writer for iDiva, and the videos she made for that media network were her first steps into digital media and content creation. Her famous “Billi Masi” persona has helped her become one of the most popular entertainment and fashion Instagrammers today. Her page is filled with posts about her lifestyle, fashion, makeup, skincare, marriage, and funny sketches and reels. Currently, she has 2.2 million IG followers who check in daily for a dose of entertainment.
DOLLY SINGH
Like Kapila, Dolly Singh is one of the most popular Indian influencers on Instagram. She became known for her videos for iDiva as “Raju ki Mummy,” which gave her a lot of attention. She is famous for making comedy sketches with characters like “Guddi Bhabhi” and “Shree the artist.” Most gen Z and millennial Indians can relate to the characters and situations in her videos, which are funny and entertaining. She is one of the best Instagram influencers in India because her new influencer trends helped her get a massive following of 1.4 million people.
NIHARIKA NM
Niharika has gained a massive following of 1.6 million people on Instagram because of the fun videos she posts. Her videos have funny accents, and a hint of her alter egos, which will make you laugh until you cry and make you forget about your problems for a few minutes. She is known among well-known fashion Instagrammers for her daily dose of fun and style and for the funny ways she shows real-life issues that young people her age face. She comes up with significant fashion trends and stylish experiments that you can use in your everyday life. You can look at her Instagram handle to get ideas for reels to put on your page to make it more popular.
ANKUSH BAHUGUNA
Ankush Bahuguna’s Instagram is full of cringe-worthy but funny reels, clever sketches, satirical videos, content that goes against stereotypes, and comedy that everyone can relate to. He quickly got on this list of India’s most influential people with content like this. Ankush has had videos for MensXP and iDiva, and his wild mom has also been in some videos (mostly making fun of him!).
With 854K followers on Instagram, he is one of the most influential Indian people on the site. Ankush is known for putting on trendy makeup and killing it with his drip lifestyle, funny reels, and posts on Instagram. Check out his IG handle for a daily dose of funny stuff that will make you laugh until you can’t think straight. He did a great job of showing how to make the most prevalent challenges during the lockdown, which helped him get more people to follow him.
KOMAL PANDEY
Komal Pandey is a well-known Indian Instagrammer and fashion trend-setter with a massive following of 1.5 million people because of her makeup looks, skincare routine, fashion therapy videos, and new fashion trends. Komal started posting pictures with “Look of the Day” on Instagram when she was in college and working at PopXo. She won the Cosmopolitan Best Fashion Influencer & Vlogger 20-21 award because she worked hard and tried to set new trends. Indians from generations Z and Y like her reels and posts a lot.
AASHNA SHROFF
Aashna Shroff is a full-time lifestyle influencer. She began her journey as an influencer with her blog, The Snob Journal. In the last couple of years, she has worked with many brands and built a steady following on Instagram, putting her on par with some of the best Indian Instagram influencers. She shares ideas for clothes, makeup, and the home on her Instagram, which has more than 918K followers.
DIIPA KHOSLA
Diipa Khosla is among the most influential Indian people in the United States. She has 1.7 million followers on Instagram, which is a considerable number. Her Handle has a lot of content about beauty, lifestyle, and fashion, which often helps start new trends. She is one of the best fashion Instagrammers to follow if you want to keep up with the latest trends in 2022 because of her famous modeling and fashion tips for everyday life.
KRITIKA KHURANA
Kritika Khurana’s blog, “That Boho Girl,” was the first one she wrote. People know her for her styling content, especially Indian and fusion wear. She is an Indian fashion and beauty influencer on Instagram. Her sense of style, makeup skills, and bubbly personality are why she won the Cosmopolitan Lifestyle Influencer of the Year 2020 award. She is one of the most popular Indian Instagram influencers in 2022, and many high school and college students follow her on IG.
SIDDHARTHA JOSHI
Indian travelers’ stories worldwide are told on Siddhartha Joshi’s Instagram. This travel influencer’s account has gorgeous photos of the places he visits, which makes you want to go there too. Siddhartha’s account has over 126k followers and is used to share travel stories, travel and photography tips, vlogs, and reviews of travel products. Siddhartha is the best Indian Instagram influencer to get reviews and travel tips from if you want to plan your next trip.
HARAMKHOR
Ganesh Vanare is a photographer who takes photos of the places he visits. On his Instagram, he posts photos of everyday life from all over India. His pictures show how beautiful places are and how beautiful people are. Oppo has made him their official brand ambassador because he is a great photographer. He has close to 473K followers on Instagram, which keeps growing thanks to his active travels and pictures that make you take a second look.
KABITA SINGH
Kabita Singh is a housewife from a simple background, and her writing shows this. Kabita Singh posts recipes that are quick and easy to make. These recipes are very popular with Indian homemakers and moms looking for easy but new recipes to make at home. People who love to learn about new cuisines, Indian dishes, and DIY cooking styles follow her on Instagram. There are 857K of them.
SADAF HUSSAIN
Chef Sadaf Hussain was a finalist on Masterchef India and is an author, podcaster, and TEDx speaker. His Instagram is a gold mine for people who love Indian street food. Because he loves food and is passionate about it, he looks into the stories of how some of our favorite foods came to be and how they were found on his Instagram. Chef Sadaf is a top Instagram influencer in India, and he is also a consulting chef for some of Delhi’s most famous cafes, bistros, and restaurants. Chef Sadaf’s Instagram has 28.8K followers, and people who are looking for lost Indian recipes, food stories, and street food trivia can check out the posts that Chef Sadaf makes!
SAHIL KHAN
Sahil Khan isn’t on the list of the top Instagram influencers in India without him. Sahil Khan has built a fitness empire on social media, with more than 10 million people following him. Sahil Khan is a former Bollywood actor whose Instagram is a must-follow for people interested in bodybuilding, workouts, and fitness tips. Sahil Khan won the Rajiv Gandhi award for being a fitness icon in India. He also owns one of the biggest gyms in the country and is known as one of the most famous fitness coaches in India. Sahil is one of India’s best-paid Instagram influencers because of his success and fame.
BANI J
Gurbani Judge, better known as Bani J, rose to fame while on MTV Roadies. After that, he worked as a VJ for MTV. She was on Bigg Boss 10, which showed everyone how necessary fitness is to her. She is also well-known for her role in the Indian web series “Four More Shots Please,” which shows how great an actress she is. She posts videos of her workouts and healthy meal plans on Instagram. Bani J is one of the most influential people on social media in India, especially regarding women’s fitness. She has more than 1.4 million followers.
SONALI SWAMI
Sonali is a mother of two, and she is also a world-class athlete. She got third place at the WBBF Asian Championship and has spoken at TEDx four times. She is one of the most famous Indian Instagrammers to follow in 2022 because of the awards and work she has done that are worth mentioning. She started bodybuilding and lifting weights when she was 37 years old, which shows how strong and determined she is. She is now one of the best women bodybuilders in India. 325K people follow her on Instagram.
These are some of the most popular Indian Instagram influencers in 2022. You can follow them to learn about beauty, fashion, lifestyle, food, cooking, entertainment, fitness, and much more.
edited and proofread by nikita sharma
