Written for the Occupancy Marketing blog

Instagram, the sometimes controversial photo sharing app/site with 100 million users, is a fantastic way to share images of your business – especially the cool not-quite day-to-day goings on in a hotel that guests love to see. The app itself is a simple tool to take filtered square photos, but some clever people have turned it into something so much more: from on-site widgets to getting posters printed here’s our breakdown of some great uses of Instagram for hotels and restaurants.

– Instagram has an API (Application Programming Interface) allowing developers to make use of user-generated images on their site. Check out Standard Hotels and Thompson Hotels for great examples

– Staying in New York, the Comodo restaurant got their customers to photograph their meals and the results are certainly making me hungry

– The API can also be used to pull Instagrams taken at a particular location (or with a certain hashtag) so that they can be printed or put on one website – one great usage of this has resulted in the modern equivalent of a photobooth

– And printing doesn’t just have to be simply getting your photos printed out – you can also get wall canvases, wooden wall prints, coasters, tiny books, fridge magnets, posters, stickers and photo cubes