Cascades and Stories: Instagram vs Snapchat
For the longest time, Snapchat and Instagram were two very distinct apps. One allowed users to share pictures viewable only once, and also share “stories” comprising of pictures that would be viewable for 24 hours. The other was a social media app focused on sharing permanent pictures on your profile. However, on August 2nd, 2016, Instagram announced a new feature that was a clear competitor to Snapchat’s “Stories.” This feature also happened to be called “Stories.”
Here we have an example of cascading behavior in networks. Instagram and Snapchat are both already popular technologies, the first with 300 million daily active users, and the latter with 150 million. While cascading behavior is often observable in new technologies attempting to replace an older one, here we have a case of an already present technology adding features in the hopes of replacing another technology. It’s clear that Instagram’s goal is to take users away from Snapchat and keep them within their own platform. One could postulate that they intend to increase profits since their large user base could attract investments from advertisers as they continue to grow.
I believe the best strategy for Instagram would be to provide an overwhelmingly better stories function than Snapchat. By providing more benefits, more users would be inclined to make the switch. There is a certain threshold in terms of how many of a Snapchat user’s neighbors have made the switch that would need to be surpassed, and this threshold could easily be decreased (meaning less friends would have to be using Instagram stories) if they provided more benefits.
While currently, many users wouldn’t delete their Snapchat app just because Instagram offers a stories feature as well, an app-run survey concluded that 43% of their users would make the jump if Instagram offered more similar features. Instagram has many resources, and it is up to them to offer above and beyond the benefits that Snapchat currently does. If not, the huge clusters of Snapchat users may not be convinced to leave their app of choice behind. Instagram will spread depending on the threshold and structure of users, but if they really want to be effective they need to be able to get past a few of these clusters of Snapchat users.
Sources:
http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/2/12348354/instagram-stories-announced-snapchat-kevin-systrom-interview
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maxwell-barna/is-instagram-stories-the-_1_b_11611868.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wishbone-app/the-instagram-vs-snapchat_b_11555342.html