What Are Social Stories & Which Platform Is Winning?

August 6, 2018

Fleeting images are social media’s latest craze. From Snapchat to Facebook Stories, Instagram Stories and WhatsApp Status, many platforms have their own version of photo and video postings that last for only 24 hours. But which platform is winning the story race?

Snapchat Stories

Snapchat’s main concept was and still is disappearing content. Since its inception in 2011, the social media site focused on private messaging and 24-hour only postings with filters and lenses, which allow users to alter their images.

The platform had a leisurely start for monetization, which may have slowed its creative development, failing to attract more daily active users and potential advertisers. But recently, the brand adopted virtual reality and partnered with Nielsen to give advertisers a leg up on reaching targeted audiences. Read our articles on Snapchat Shopping and the Snapchat and Nielsen partnership to learn more.

Snapchat’s platform has 191 million daily active users (DAUs).

Instagram Stories

Launched in 2010, Instagram was quick to be adopted by regular social media users, and in 2012, the platform was purchased by Facebook for $1 billion. Instagram Stories, with disappearing videos and photos, launched in 2016.

Instagram Stories offered photo filters and the ability to draw over content when the feature was first added to the app. Now, Instagram Stories includes stickers, GIFs, Bitmoji and more.

Instagram Stories now hosts more than 400 million users daily.

WhatsApp Status

WhatsApp, released in 2011, is a private messaging app that allows for texts, video chatting, voice calls and other handy features.

Purchased by Facebook in 2014 for $19 billion, WhatsApp has a loyal user base. It was hardly a surprise when their status feature, a cloned version of Instagram Stories, was released in 2017 and saw immediate use. WhatsApp Status came with the options of stickers, drawing, GIFs, filters and more.

WhatsApp Status use has skyrocketed since its 2017 release, reaching 450 million DAUs in just one year.

Facebook Stories

Facebook, originally launched in 2004, released its own stories feature last year as well.

As we know, Facebook is a social media behemoth. Surprisingly, the number of DAUs for Facebook Stories didn’t take off the same way it did for WhatsApp status or Instagram Stories. Statista reported Facebook Stories DAUs at just 150 million as of 2018.

So which platform is winning?

WhatsApp Status surpassed other platforms in terms of DAUs and did so much faster than its competitors. WhatsApp’s closest competition, Instagram, is 50 million DAUs behind and took two years to grow that following, whereas WhatsApp reached 450 million DAUs in just one year. From a user volume and growth perspective, it’s safe to say WhatsApp is the winning platform.

Stories Growth Rate Measured in Millions of Daily Active Users (DAUs) data from Statista Digital Media Solutions Chart

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