Snapchat

Instagram and Snapchat are very popular social media apps that attract 687 million daily active users. That’s a lot of people! So it’s super important to consider which one you should use to boost your social marketing campaign for your business.

If you’re working at a small company and can’t justify spending your resources on both, which one do you choose?

Since both platforms increasingly overlap in features, function, and advertising components, it can be hard to distinguish the unique elements that make one a better fit for your business.

Here are 4 categories within both apps – you can decide for yourself what will work better for you!

Audience

Winner: Instagram

Instagram has 500 million daily active users, which is 3x as large as Snapchat! Instagram’s audience tend to be on Instagram 2x as much as Snapchat per day as well. Snapchat is good for quick stories and it’s great for a younger demographic. Instagram on the other hand is geared more towards users between 19-30 years old. If your ideal audience is an older demographic, or if you haven’t fully established your brand and want to reach as many people as possible, Instagram might be a better long-term fit, especially since you can use hashtags which means your brand will become more noticeable, more quickly.

2. Filters

Winner: Snapchat

Although Instagram has tried to create nearly identical filters to Snapchat on Instagram Stories, Snapchat’s filters are still unbeatable. Snapchat is especially unique when it comes to filter animations: if you use the dog filter on Snapchat, you don’t just look like a dog, you also move like one. If you stick out your tongue, it wags like a dog’s tongue.

3. Stories

Winner: Instagram

Instagram not only has a better design, but once you begin viewing someone’s story on Instagram, it automatically continues to the next person’s story, which means that, unless you click out of it, you will view everyones story. I notice for myself that I get 2x as many story views on Instagram vs Snapchat.

Most of your Instagram followers will see your story simply because they were already in the feature, making it more ideal from a business perspective. With Snapchat, viewers are asked if they want to view the next person’s story. Your followers have the option to click past your story without opening it, which isn’t ideal for your business.

Also, Instagram now offers “story highlights” which can stay on your profile as long as you wish. This means that it gives your audience a longer time to view your story. Snapchat stories only lasts 24 hours.

4. Advertisements

Winner: Instagram

Snapchat doesn’t really offer many advertisement options. Instagram ads have prove to be quite effective: at least 30% of Instagram users have purchased a product they first saw on Instagram. Not only are the ads effective, but they don’t cost much! You can do as little as $1.00 for a day or $5.00 a day for a week. It’s up to you and what you’re looking for.

You can also run Instagram ads, and measure results, within Facebook’s Ad Manager,which is especially convenient if your business also uses Facebook as an advertising platform.