War of the Poses: Instagram takes on Snapchat
As photographers struggle to make the most out of social media to help boost their businesses and introduce their work to new clients on a playing field where the main players, Facebook and Instagram, keep changing their algorithms to affect who sees the content you post and when, will a new offering from Instagram draw them in?
Instagram's recent move to introduce a new Stories feature may well be a declaration of war on Snapchat. Now more popular than Twitter, but small-fry in comparison to Instagram and Facebook, is Snapchat possibly a new frontier for photographers, or will photographers stick with Instagram? Instagram Stories lets people share photos and videos that have a life span of just 24 hours with their followers, and they won’t appear on your profile grid or feed.
The service bears a striking resemblance to Snapchat Stories – allowing users to post 24-hour ephemeral photo and video slideshows that disappear. This new offering comes wth privacy and insight settings to help you both track and control who sees what you post. This may be particularly useful for photographers keen to promote an offer for a very limited period of time, and then follow up with prospective clients who have viewed it.
The move could ignite a head-to-head battle between Instagram, owned by Facebook since 2012, and Snapchat, which have previously played in each other’s territory in the fight for the elusive eyes of millennials. In 2013, Facebook offered to buy Snapchat for US$3 billion, but the offer was rejected by founder Evan Spiegel. With a takeover ruled out, Instagram is clearly trying to tap into a way to appeal to the younger audience on Snapchat.
Instagram CEO and founder Kevin Systrom freely admitted Snapchat "deserves all the credit", an interview with TechCrunch, adding major tech companies have been stealing from each other for years. It isn’t the first time Facebook or Instagram have attempted to claw at Snapchat’s success. In 2013, the photo-sharing app launched Instagram Direct, a private messaging feature which was later removed. A year later, Facebook launched Slingshot, an independent app that mimicked Snapchat’s disappearing features. It was pulled out of the App Store last year.
Both Instagram and Snapchat are trying to improve their businesses by increasing digital advertising in native formats, like Stories. Snapchat has been increasingly working with brands on branded geofilters, with Tiffany and Co the latest advertiser to get on board. Facebook is currently testing mid-roll video ads in Facebook Live – a model which could be introduced into Instagram’s new Stories feature.
A version of this story originally appeared on www.adnews.com.au