Social Media giant Facebook has been the top player among
social sites since their establishment, but maintaining this #1 spot has
branched out beyond their little blue logo. Back in 2012 Facebook purchased the
increasingly popular Instagram app for a very healthy price. With Instagram now
in their power, Facebook continues to own a huge majority of the market without
many people even noticing. I recall the headlines of Facebooks purchase a few
years ago, but since then went about using Instagram seeing no difference and
quite honestly forgetting it was now a Facebook product.
Until lately, over the past few months when I open my Instagram
apps I’ve began to noticed striking similarities between “new” Instagram features
and the already existing Facebook features. I’ve noticed these overlaps across
three different categories, but this may just be the beginning.
Who you follow - Scrolling
through my Instagram feed I could help but stopped when I came to several small
boxes horizontally crossing my screen. The different size and orientation of
them caught my eye and as I started to scroll through the faces I realized they
were suggested followers… mirroring exactly the suggested friends section of my
Facebook page. The same as Facebook, I scrolled through the suggestions and
recognized a few and added none. At a later time on the app, while stalking a
girl, I clicked into her profile to find a list of my friends who also follow
her written in light gray on her profile. Very similar to the mutual friends
listed on a Facebook profile, I found this aspect helpful on Instagram. With
people using usernames that aren’t their exact name it’s sometime helpful to
confirm they’re who you hope they are.
Advertisements – This
one is no surprise, if you have the app you’ve noticed them. It was only a
matter of time before ads found their way to Instagram, but they don’t bother
me much. I feel Instagram does a great job integrating their ads into their
content so it doesn’t inhibit my user experience and I honestly find myself
stopping and looking at Instagram ads more than those on any other site. To be
honest I feel that I saw a shift in Facebook ads following the start of
Instagram ads, maybe they learned something from their new app. I feel that
Facebook ads have begun to become much more integrated into my experience in
the form of promotions and product placement in videos being shared on my newsfeed.
How you “like” - Now
this appeared and left… hopefully for good. This past week I couldn’t help but
notice some testing going on in my Instagram app, because I yelled “omg I hate
this” to my roommate who then opened her app and said she had no idea what I
was talking about. For one night my Instagram likes began to be formatted the
same as Facebook likes “Blabla , Blabla2 and 123 Other people
likes this photo” spacing out the “likes” like enough to catch my attention and
throw off my visual experience. I was irrationally mad about something that has
no impact on my life until the next day when it returned to normal.
The real question is will this really change or boost Instagram
usage? I assume that Facebook would only think to implement these ideas if they
had seen success with them on Facebook. But as Facebook begins to die out and
users find interest elsewhere, i.e Instagram, will this just bring frustration
to see just what you are trying to escape? I personally feel like it’s in
Facebooks best interest to try to keep the two apps true to their original feel
and continue to allow people to associate them as two different brands in their
mind. This avoids driving away Facebook “protestors”, and allows others who are
just looking for a different experience to continue to find that. But then
again, I did just add a new suggested follower.
