Instagram made me eat my words

On April 6, 2016, I wrote this post declaring Instagram and Facebook are dead. Less than 6 months later, I think Snapchat is dying and Instagram is alive and better than ever.

Recently, Instagram released Instagram Stories, which are pretty much an exact copy of Snapchat Stories, and “Snapchat deserves all the credit, according to Instagram’s CEO.”

So Instagram copied Snapchat’s best feature, why should Snapchat be scared? Why would someone use Instagram Stories instead of Snapchat. A few reasons…

1. It’s hard to add friends on Snapchat

To add someone on Snapchat you can either:

A) Add them from your address book, meaning you have to have their phone number and individually click everyone you want to add from your address book

B) Add them by their exactusername

C) You can also turn your phone on to find users nearby (Very creepy feature that no one uses) or scan someone's barcode (A cool feature…..in 2009 when Blackberry released it)

On Instagram you can:

A) Follow everyone in your address book with one click

B) Follow all your Facebook friends with one click

C) Search for people's names and their profile will come up

D) Get suggestions on who to follow

E) Search popular hashtags and locations to find people to follow

F) See who is tagged in posts and photos and follow them

G) Follow like minded people liking and engaging in the same content

H) Search them by their username to follow

It’s clear that most people have way more friends/followers on Instagram than Snapchat, because it is so much easier to add friends and find new people. I think Snapchat deliberately made it difficult to find and add new friends because they wanted to keep it intimate, but it is backfiring. If I’m sharing a story, I am sharing it because I think it is cool or funny and I want as many people I know to see it as possible. If I can get more views from more friends on Instagram than Snapchat, why would I post on Snapchat?

Try it for yourself, think of any person you know (Who’s phone number you don’t have), it could be a friend, family member, or celebrity. Try to find them on Instagram, then try to find them on Snapchat. Comment below your experience

2. Celebrities

Celebrities/Athletes/Social Media Stars already have HUGE followings on Instagram. While for the normal Joe Schmo the gap might not be that severe, they might have 300 Instagram followers and get 100 views on their Snapchat stories for celebrities it is a whole different magnitude. I talked to some of my friends who have huge followings, and they all have 2-10 Million Instagram followers, but only get 50k-750k views on their Snapchat stories. Why would they post on Snapchat and get 50k views when they could get a few million on Instagram stories?

Once you find a few celebrities on Instagram, try to find their Snapchat. If you can find them on Snapchat, see which they are using more, Instagram or Snapchat stories. Beside DJ Khaled, practically every Celebrity/Athlete/Social Media Star is using Instagram stories WAY more.

People want to be like celebrities. It is in the celebrities best interest to use Instagram Stories more, so they are using it. Everyone else wants to be celebrities, so they will use Instagram stories to be like them.

Right now Instagram stories is mostly being used by celebrities, because they have the most drastic difference in followings on the two platforms, but soon every Joe Schmo will follow the trend.

3. Competition

I don’t watch Snapchat Stories anymore, I have too many in my feed. On my personal Snapchat account, I have about 400 friends, and damn near everyone of them use stories almost everyday. There is so much going on in my story feed that it is overwhelming, and there is no way I can watch them all.

On my personal Instagram account I follow 660 people, but only have about 20-30 stories in my feed everyday, and I watch almost every one. If you want someone to see what you are doing, you’d post it on Instagram stories, where they are more likely to see it.

Both platforms are good, but both are lacking organization. It is a major problem for Snapchat now, and will be a problem for Instagram as more and more people start using stories.

Right now, the stories are organized by time, in chronological order from when they are posted. Instagram and Snapchat both do this, and it is SO WRONG. There needs to be an option to sort by people.

A simple solution would to rate everyone from 1 Star to 5 Stars. Then you could have the option to have stories organized by your rating, so you can see the people most important to you first. At the top of your feed for stories you will have your 5 stars, then 4 stars, then 3 stars, then 2 stars, then (If you’re on the toilet for a really long time) the 1 stars. The rankings will be private to you, know one has to know what you ranked them, and it will make your feed way more relevant and engaging. Or I'm pretty sure the engineers at Instagram and Facebook are smart enough to know who your favorite people are so you don't even have to rank them yourself.

In summary, I think a huge shift will be made from Snapchat to Instagram stories, but the first platform to figure out a ranking system to organize the story feed will win out in the end.

Let me know your thoughts below!