I’m sure many of you have heard or seen that Instagram has added a new stories feature similar to Snapchat. The reactions I’ve read so far have been extremely mixed. Some are excited to have an additional platform to share their content, lives, products, etc. Others are annoyed and confused, not understanding the direction of both platforms. So what DOES this change mean now and moving forward? I’m sharing my insights on the changes consumers and brands may see.

What this change means for consumers:

Consumers may begin to feel overwhelmed and shy away from following brands on EVERY platform. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, YouTube, it can all begin to be an overload of info and a consumer is typically seeking out a certain type of content from a brand whether it be articles, videos, or photos. When they can access video and photo from their favorite brand in one place they have less of a need to access the information from an additional platform.

What this change means for brands:

Brands may see a shift in their viewership on Snapchat. My suggestion for brands looking to see where their audience is would be do both starting out and see which gets the most interaction. There’s no sense in continuing to put effort into Snapchat if you see your followers are no longer there. At the end of the day it’s about knowing your audience and what they want and how you can best accommodate them.

My thoughts:

Consumers will continue to use Snapchat to stay updated on the lives of friends, family and celebrities. Instagram adding this feature is HUGE for brands and may cause brands to gravitate towards solely using that platform and neglecting Snapchat. Additionally, Instagram now includes analytics on business accounts allowing brands to track data that Snapchat does not have available which is an add value. Only time will tell!