Just a year ago, Snap Inc. was the darling child of the tech world.
Just a year ago, Snap Inc. was the darling child of the tech world – it had a highly anticipated IPO, the app’s daily active user numbers were skyrocketing, and it ventured into hardware. Today, however, the company’s fortunes seemed to have turned on its head, with its IPO being considered a relative bust and growth slowing to a crawl. It appears that Snapchat, initially billed as the anti-Facebook and anti-Twitter with its disappearing messages, might have to borrow from its competitors in order to survive.
Slowing Growth
Between Q2 and Q4 of 2016, Snapchat’s quarter-over-quarter growth plummeted from 17.2% to 3.2%. Much of this has been attributed to the Instagram’s launch of Instagram Stories. Instagram has managed to leapfrog over Snapchat in its short 10-month lifespan, with over 200 million daily active users compared to Snapchat’s 158 million. Even Twitter, which has been plagued with slowing growth for the past few years, was able to add an above average 9 million unique users in Q1 2017.
Why Is Snapchat Losing The Social Media Battle?
How, then, have Instagram and Twitter have been able to outdo Snapchat? Their use of algorithm. Both social media platforms use algorithms to sort the feed of its users, to display what they think the user would most likely want to see first. Although long-time users of both apps cried bloody murder when move away from reverse-chronologically ordered feeds were taking place, results proved otherwise. Instagram has added over 200 million users since its switch, for a total of 700 million, while Twitter saw its first substantial user increase in several quarters.
Snapchat now, by comparison, seems almost archaic; the need to scroll through a long list of users to find a user you watch on a daily basis. In Snapchat’s reverse-chronological world, those who post often get the top billing, but that often isn’t who the user wants to see. Moreover, Snapchat removed the auto-advance function (moving from one user’s feed to the next seamlessly), only working to advance its lack of user-friendliness. Instagram Stories, on the other hand, embraces all that Snapchat has rejected – and that has led to them overtaking Snapchat in a matter of months.
What’s Next For Snap?
Ironically, Snapchat was reported in mid-2016 to be developing a curation algorithm for the brands and companies that promote through the platform. However, nothing ever came of this. In that pre-Instagram Stories world, Snapchat had no need to fix what was broken. Whilst they once had a monopoly over the disappearing-content market, it is now no longer the case.
A move to an algorithmically sorted feed might irk some users, but it would put them on the same playing field as its competitors. Snapchat could even take the Twitter route, by allowing users to choose their style of feed display. With another platform nipping at its heels, Snap Inc. has lost the luxury to do as they please without worrying about losing their userbase, and they need to act fast before it becomes yet another MySpace, relegated to the history books.
