Instagram Stories: I have been posting in response to others posts, here’s a quick summary…
Very smart move by FB. More tools for creating continent, all sounds good to me. Just make sure to play where your consumers play. I believe Instagram will pull a lot of potential new users from Snapchat. Some people who are already using Instagram, and have never tried Snapchat, will probably now not bother. Also those who have worked hard to build an audience on Instagram, and have started using Snapchat for the valuable features and storytelling capabilities, will most certainly opt to now stay with Instagram rather than starting from scratch, or with the lower follower count/engagement they have experienced on Snapchat. *Unless of course there is a specific audience, that lives on Snapchat and not Instagram, who they are looking to reach.
I don’t see much of a difference, other than UI, just less features at the moment. But love the idea of having access to all my Instagram followers, and possibly not having the need of an additional platform. For now it’s making my life more difficult because I’m feeling the need to post stories in both places until I determine it I will go with one or the other as a primary.
I do like, A LOT, that Instagram conversations automatically save without the need to remember to save, and or the need for taking that extra step to save, in order to be able to reference them later. I am now understanding conversations as they continue, rather than often not having a clue on Snapchat (obviously something they can change easily if they decide to do so).
I also like with Instagram Stories that I can copy/cut&paste messages after the fact for use elsewhere , whereas on Snapchat you can’t do that.
I think this will prove to be very positive for Instagram and for us as users… not sure how it will affect Snapchat going forward, but certainly GAME ON!
AND some great insight via my FB post from friend and business colleague Chris Gonzalez…
“Totally agree with your take… plus the user discovery element by location and search! From what I have seen so far opens are like 300%-400% more from what I have seen from Snapchat. I also really like the algorithm placement on IG stories. I’m speculating that more people who are engaging with your Instagram story the more priority the user account will have in future placement down the road (since the algorithm can only have so many primary end points to measure user relevance). So I think people who are posting now are really going to capture arbitrage. I also think there could be a self serve vertical ad unit in the works from FB, integrated into the pre existing Instagram line of ad products. Snapchat just now released API access to like 20 vendors and they are still doing mostly six figure direct buys. Facebook could really beat them to the ad punch because Facebook already has the underlying user data, and self service distribution connected to the Advert platform. Snapchat won’t have anything close data wise in the near future, because think about the primary data points you give snapchat when you create your account (age, sex, birthday).”