Throughout my life I have seen how social media has grown and changed. There has been a constant evolution in the way social media works and what people use it for. I first started to use social media in 2013 when I made my Instagram account. Now in 2019 it’s hard to remember what Instagram use to look and function like. Instagram has added the ability to post videos, more than one picture at once, and you can even message people directly on the app. I love being able to send stuff through the app. Now when I want to share something with my friends I can just send in through the app, instead of having to take a screenshot and texting it to them. Another app that I have seen grow to huge heights is Snapchat. From what it is not compared to what it was when I first made my account, its like a brand-new app. Snapchat has not started to slow down in the world of social media, but Instagram has seemed to slow down quite a bit. I see Snapchat as being one of the future big social media sites, and sadly, I do not see Instagram being there.
Both Snapchat and Instagram have changed a lot, but I feel Snapchat has changed more. They redid their whole app but based it around the simple principle of sending pictures to your friends. They fixed their biggest complete like being limited in the text you can have per picture. I am so glad they fixed this problem. It was so annoying having to send three pictures just to say one simple idea. They also added the ability to send videos which is also great. Snapchat added stories, and shortly after Instagram did they same. It looked like to me and many of my peers that Instagram just ripped Snapchat off with their idea as their stories were the exact same as the ones on Snapchat. I can easily see the dramatic difference in the way people use Instagram stories vs Snapchat stories. It’s very simple, people don’t use Instagram stories, but everyone uses Snapchat stories. However, even if personally people use Snapchat stories more, Business post nonstop on their Instagram stories. Their Instagram’s have a lot more followers than there Snapchats, so of course they’re going to post where ever the most amount of people will see it. Plus, this is free advertising to business, it does not coast them any money to post on their story, due to this they spam their story to always give people new things to look at and to always have it pop up and resent post.
Snapchat and Instagram have both added features in which business can have ads on their platforms. I have noticed much more big-name brands to have ads on Snapchat and brands I have never heard of to be on Instagram. This is another reason That I think Snapchat will end up being a big social media site for a long time where Instagram may fall off. This makes me think that Snapchat can charge more for their ads and Instagram will just take what they can get. For example, while writing this paper Snapchat had a filter that is sponsored by American Eagle and I have not seen one ad for a brand I know of on Instagram for weeks. This shows that big business are choosing to use Snapchats advertisements over Instagram’s. Business may most more on Instagram but when it comes to spending money they choice Snapchat. This gets Snapchat more money to further on the track to being one of the best social media platforms of all time.
I believed within the next few years there will be a big drop in users on Instagram and a continuous increase in the amount of people who use Snapchat. I myself, already use Snapchat way more than I use Instagram and I do not see that changing any time soon. Out of the three social media cites I have (Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram) Instagram is the one I check the lease and Snapchat it the one I check the most. I think that with people using Snapchat more and bigger business sponsoring them they will end up being a massive social media platform in the coming years.
Ryan Baldwin 