On August 2nd, 2016, there was an Instagram update that was remarkably similar to Snapchat. Introducing “Instagram Stories” took a page out of Snapchat’s book, with personalized and creative clips to share your today with your followers. These clips are only a few seconds long and then disappear off of your Instagram after 24 hours. Now what does this mean for businesses? Snapchat is definitely a top priority when it comes to hitting younger mobile viewers with advertising messages. Now with this new update, there are more effective and creative ways for advertising messages to reach the audience they are intended for. Instagram has $75 million daily active users compared to Snapchat’s 100 million. However, Instagram has a broader age range between users and gives more chance for engagement.
With individual profiles, businesses have more of a name for themselves since their message doesn’t disappear after 24 hours. But with the Instagram Stories, businesses can now advertise to each one of their followers who have already shown interest in the company, in the same manner as they would on Snapchat’s platform. When comparing the two applications, it is easily identifiable that Instagram has higher resolution, giving it the edge over Snapchat in picture quality. Both apps also offer different filters for retouching and an art aspect for creative drawings.
For small businesses using Instagram, there are a few nuisances that can help promote your business that Snapchat wont be able to do for you.
- Use of hashtags. Hashtags are a pound symbol (#) followed by a few words or a phrase that categorizes your business, idea, or product. Using hashtags helps your picture to become relevant and searchable whenever someone searches for that specific phrase or similar phrases. This is like free publicity by just classifying what you’re promoting.
- Instagram is a more permanent than Snapchat. Your pictures will stay on your profile indefinitely compared to Snapchat which will disappear after a 24 hour span.
- Customization in Instagram. You can customize your Instagram pictures using filters, cropping tools, and editing techniques that Snapchat just doesn’t offer.
On the other hand, Snaphat is great for regional marketing. The use of “geotags” acts as a filter that you can use to promote your company and is very affordable too. Whenever anyone uses the app, they can decide to use, or not use your geotag, and just by having it there, you can get a large amount of impressions.
A major advantage for using Instagram in relation to Snapchat is that Instagram is a product of Facebook. With Facebook owning Instagram, the two work seamlessly together and makes it easier on the advertiser to work on both platforms. Sharing posts on both is easy and there’s also an option for an Instagram post to be automatically posted on Facebook.
For more information about Social Media and how it can help your business, contact Moxie Digital!
