After Instagram Stories’ release, people flocked to use the new update, quickly preferring it over Snapchat. Snapchat stars, Youtube personalities, and brands are particularly fond of Instagram Stories. Here are five reasons why Instagram Stories is a better option for businesses than Snapchat stories.
1. Instagram Has Better Drawing Filters
Unlike Snapchat, Instagram features drawing filters with various styles. For instance, users can use a marker’s tip, a pen’s tip (the regular tip Snapchat uses), and a glow in the dark tip. This allows users to better create drawings and texts into their posts.
2. Instagram Is More User Friendly
Unlike Snapchat, Instagram lets you know when a person’s story begins and ends. While Snapchat instantly shows you the next person’s story without any indication, Instagram provides a bar that runs across the top of your screen. Additionally, Instagram indicates the end of an individual’s story by providing helpful animation. The last story, which appears as a two-dimensional box, rotates as another person’s story slips into place.
Instagram also lets users tap on a button that says “message” to send a message, swipe backward to view the previous story and forward to view the next story.
3. Instagram Is More Brand Friendly
Unlike Snapchat, Instagram gives users the ability to easily follow other users by featuring a discovery portal. The portal features regular users such as budding Snapchat and personality stars in need of a larger audience. Because of this, Snapchat stars and smaller brands are using the discovery portal to make themselves known.
Additionally, Instagram is consumer focused rather than creator focused. Unlike Snapchat, Instagram lets users view other users’ posts first. This is done in the form of the Instagram feed. To create content, users must click a separate button. Snapchat, however, directs users to the camera screen before they can see others’ posts. Instagram’s focus on consumption allows users to see their favorite brands’ posts.
4. Instagram Has a Larger User Base
When Nike released its Michigan football jersey on Instagram stories, it amassed 800,000 views while its release on Snapchat only amassed 66,000 views. It’s unsurprising that Nike received more views in Instagram than in Snapchat considering Instagram has 300 million daily users while Snapchat has only 150 million active users.
Instagram’s larger audience benefits budding Snapchat stars and businesses because their posts can reach a wider audience.
5. Instagram Provides Data On Users
As mentioned, Snapchat is not brand friendly. This is partly because it does not provide data on users. Instagram, on the other hand, does.
“Instagram has a much more defined ad tool, audience data, analytics, and API,” says Nick Cicero, CEO of Delmondo. “There are a lot of brands that have already grown really large Instagram audiences. Now they can turn on Stories and create that same live-ish content.”
Instagram also makes it easier for users to see each story’s views. While users need to swipe up to see who viewed their story, users can simultaneously view both the users who viewed the story and the total number of views.
Not only did Instagram improve what already existed on Snapchat, but it also added helpful features that Snapchat did not possess. On hindsight, Instagram Stories may not be a product of blatant plagiarism after all.
