Is Snapchat Or Instagram Stories Right For Your Brand?

Social media moves fast. Staying up to date is a major component of working in the field because it can help you make crucial decisions about which tasks to prioritize. A popular current debate, for example, is whether Snapchat or Instagram Stories is a better outlet for your brand’s content.

I wouldn’t have been writing this post a year ago. Instagram Stories didn’t exist. It launched on August 2nd, 2016. Five months later, TechCrunch reported that Snapchat’s growth had slowed down by a whopping 82%.

More recently, Adweek has reported that brands are using Instagram Stories twice as much as Snapchat.

Both platforms make user content time-sensitive, which encourages them to check regularly. It’s excellent from an engagement standpoint and helpful in fostering an ongoing relationship. Brands can post as much or as little content as they like, as frequently or infrequently as they like.

While “the other brands are doing it” and “Instagram Stories has more users” are decent arguments, it pays to delve a little further into the available stats as well. Snapchat’s audience skews a little younger, though that’s changing quickly.

One major advantage of Instagram Stories is that clickable mentions are baked right in, which gives influencer campaigns and partnerships with other brands a tiny bit more traction.

If you do have the bandwith to post content to both, definitely cross-promote. You’ll definitely want as many eyeballs on your content as you can get. You can also provide your audience with regular notices about what kind of content goes where – for example, behind the scenes is all Snapchat’s while product announcements will be exclusively announced on Instagram Stories.

Whatever you decide, remember that social media is a constant process of testing and optimizing. What works for Brand A may not work as well for Brand B, so keep posting!

Sonnie Hiles