How Snapchat saved Instagram

It’s 2013. Photo-sharing platform Snapchat is still relatively new in the social media world, Facebook’s as popular as ever and Gangnam Style is the most-watched video on YouTube. At the time, nobody suspected that Snapchat was about to drop the feature that would save its competition a few years later: the story.

Ask a friend today: «Did you see what Cristiano Ronaldo posted in his story?», everyone’s automatically going to think you mean Instagram. Who even remembers that the story was originally a Snapchat feature?

Snapchat nails it

In October 2013, Snapchat, a young messenger platform for sharing self-deleting photos, introduced the world to its story feature for the first time. Instead of sending photos to individual friends, you could now also post them publicly. They’d stay online for 24 hours before disappearing – in line with the principle of the app.

Initially ridiculed, it later became very popular not too long after. The feature allows users to stay in touch with their contacts in an authentic and fast way. A-listers and lesser-known celebs alike used Snapchat’s story feature to share all aspects of their lives with the world.

The feature quickly became a hit, also in Switzerland. There was even a news story in German published by the Swiss national broadcasting company with tips on how to make a Snapchat story work.

A big plus was certainly the authenticity of stories back then. You could only post pictures you took directly in the app, and there weren’t any editing options worth mentioning.

The Snapchat story certainly kicked off a minor paradigm shift with its feature. Its success didn’t go unnoticed by competitor and social media giant Facebook.

Veni, vidi, imitavi

In 2016, Instagram, which was already a Facebook subsidiary at the time, unveiled its feature: the story! And so, history repeated itself. Instagram more or less copied Snapchat’s idea. Not only its name, but also its range of functions.

Instagram’s story feature was also mocked at first. This time, it wasn’t because of the feature itself, but because of how it came to be. «That already exists» or «Why should I post my stories on another platform, too?» were roughly the reactions online and in the real world when hearing about this «new» feature.

And yet, the mockery slowly subsided and turned into enthusiasm. Just one year later, the tide had turned completely.

Snapchat saved Insta’s life

This new feature was the breath of fresh air Instagram had been in need of for a while. Before the launch of the story, posts made on Instagram had hit an all-time low.

By 2017, Instagram stories had clearly overtaken Snapchat’s. The feature was used daily by over 200 million people as this brief article and chart in German show. To date, Snapchat hasn’t managed to reach this number with its stories.

Instagram had one big advantage over Snapchat: user numbers. While Snapchat just about cracked the 100 million active user mark in 2016, Instagram was already recording well over 500 million people on its platform every month. So the question why people preferred to post their stories on Instagram was very easy to answer as a result: reach.

And Instagram’s recipe for successfully, erm, stealing, features seems to be working. While Snapchat recorded around 800 million monthly active users at the end of April 2024, Instagram had already cracked the two billion (!) mark.

Admittedly, the platform we use to post square pics of our holidays does have a lot to offer these days: stories, short videos, direct messaging and live streams are all features the Meta platform has copied from its competitors. But that’s a topic for another day.

The highest form of flattery?

You could argue that Instagram has significantly developed its story formula. Surveys, stickers, music and links provide tangible added value that Snapchat lacked at the time.

Is this really feature theft or just good imitation – and does it even matter? After all, it’s up to you where you choose to post your story. Whether you’re on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, TikTok, Pinterest, Telegram, at times even on Twitter, YouTube and Spotify – stories are all over the internet these days.

And yet, the numbers speak volumes. It seems like every imitation of the story feature has become more popular than the original. See for yourself: open Snapchat and see how many of your friends have posted a story in the past 24 hours. Next, compare that number to any other app. The results should be pretty clear.

What’s more important to you: innovation or reach? Does Instagram deserve to be praised for evolving the story format, or should we be giving Snapchat more credit as its inventor? Share your thoughts with the Community in the comments!