In an announcement Thursday, Instagram boasted over 200 million users post to Stories on a daily basis. This is huge, considering the ephemeral, Snapchat-esque feature is only about eight months old. Snapchat, which filed a public IPO in February, stated at the time that “on average, 158 million people use Snapchat daily.” Of course, those numbers have probably increased a bit in the past two months, but one thing’s for sure: there’s a serious rivalry going on here.
In one corner, you’ve got Snapchat, the originators of disappearing visual content. This zany app still offers Millennials and Gen-Z a place to truly be themselves and post highly creative content on the daily. Even digital news organizations and cutting-edge brands post on the Discover page regularly, making it a truly unique, experimental place. With each new update, Snapchat seems to add more functionality and features for storytelling, showing it wants to be taken seriously.
In the opposing corner, you’ve got Instagram Stories. The strong and consistent user base of Instagram has paved the way for this ephemeral feature, with obvious success. Posts on this platform are spontaneous, but they still carry the “mountaintop moments” of typical Instagram updates. They don’t seem to carry the edge, the mystique, or the magic of Snapchat. But especially with Thursday’s update, New Stickers and More: Fun Ways to Be Creative in Stories and Direct, Instagram is trying to make ‘Stories’ a more fun, playful platform.
In all, it seems each of these rivals are looking more like one another every day. Snapchat gets bigger and more mature, while Instagram makes moves to be young and fun.
As a brand or business, how do you use Instagram Stories versus Snapchat? Do you think there’s a difference? Let us know in the comment section below!
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