The social media world is buzzing about Instagram unveiling its newest feature: “Instagram Stories”. This new feature allows users to share as much as they want throughout the day with photos and video clips that disappear after 24 hours. They also won’t appear on profile grids or feeds. Your stories can now be brought to life in new ways with text and drawing tools.
Any social media guru knows that this is one of the biggest features in Snapchat. But what has people stirring is how Facebook and Instagram are flexing their muscles in the wake of the latter’s new platform change.
For any business looking to make sense of how social media is changing and how to keep up with it, contact our digital marketing agency in McAllen today.
Buying Out the Competition
Back in 2012, Facebook bought Instagram for a whopping $1 billion dollars. Ever since then, it’s been trying to buy out Snapchat, offering as much as $3 billion. For some time, Mark Zuckerberg and his social media giants have been trying to do something similar to Snapchat.
The social media world is in an uproar with claims that Facebook is stealing Snapchat’s feature, bringing forth the question of whether or not Snapchat could be in trouble. What can be done, if anything?
How They Stack Up Against Each Other
Snapchat
Daily active users: 150 million
Number of Snaps per day: 400 million
Monthly active users: 500 million
Daily active users: 300 million
For the record, Snapchat is fairly new. Released in 2011, it still has a couple of different features that set it apart from Instagram, such as their popular filters for photos. But in all honesty, there isn’t much else that sets Snapchat apart anymore, and because of Instagram’s overall broader user base, it seems as if Snapchat might meet some future challenges if they remain on their current path.
Instagram showcases live content and traditional static profiles as well, making corporate giants take note of where their investments should be going. Nike, for example, has already seen what Instagram’s latest feature can bring compared to Snapchat, reporting 800,000 views on their Instagram Story verses 66,000 Snapchat views on that version.
A Common Format?
Recently, Kevin Weil, Instagram’s product head told Wired UK: ”Our belief is that ‘stories’ is going to become a common format that is developed on multiple apps and services. Facebook was the first to introduce the Feed, now tons of apps have feeds and you don’t think anything of it when another app uses a feed – it’s the same thing with hashtags. We think the story is going to become a common format.”
According to specialist intellectual property (IP) lawyer Jeremy Harris, not much can be done in terms of legalities because Instagram has done nothing wrong unless they steal the exact format codes that Snapchat uses. So, what’s next for Snapchat?
Snapchat’s Future
As far as marketing goes, Snapchat has an upper hand by using great humor and whit to poke fun of Instagram. As for the future, we aren’t too sure where Snapchat can go after this. And we can assume that Snapchat’s filter features might be up for grabs as well. Until then, we will be online with our Snapchat (ImagineItRGV) and Instagram accounts. Follow us for more insightful stories on Facebook and Twitter, too!
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