The Snapchat clone, Instagram Stories, has hit a brand new benchmark, reaching a total of 250 million daily active users. The Facebook-owned mobile app is quickly surpassing Snapchat as the leader in hosting evanescent content, as more users are ditching the other content sharing app for Instagram. What makes this new benchmark even more impressive is that Instagram Stories only hit the 200 million daily active user mark in April, representing a 25% increase in only two months. With Snapchat’s daily active user base struggling to grow, this is a clear victory for both Instagram and Facebook.
Why is Instagram Stories seeing a surge in daily active users? The adoption rate has been fueled by the existing base of users on the app, as the Stories feature was integrated seamlessly within the existing framework. Other social media platforms had failed in this regard when it came to releasing standalone apps for new features. For example, Facebook’s Slingshot was a prime example of this, as Facebook tried to push users to an external app to replicate the features inherent in Snapchat. However, it never received the response Instagram Stories has, leading to its demise and eventual shutdown in December 2015. The success behind stories is attributed to the fact that Instagram has 400 daily active users, making it relatively easy for users to use Snapchat-like features in the same app where they browse content. Additionally, influencers are continuing to migrate to Instagram Stories due to the wealth of features available to build audiences, such as discovery tools and tagging, all of which are not available within Snapchat.
The future also shows no signs of slowing down as adoption rates slowing down for the Facebook-owned app. With live-streaming and advertising options available on Instagram Stories, influencers and businesses alike will continue to invest time and resources into producing content on the popular social media platform. Unfortunately, this likely means that former major players on Snapchat will choose to maintain its existing audience without putting in a bigger effort to cultivate more users. It’s unknown how Snapchat will combat Instagram to pull away users, but if the company doesn’t act soon, it may soon wither away and continue to lose users to its biggest competitor.