Who tells a better story? Snapchat's Live Stories or Twitter's Moments?
Up until Halloween, those were the two largest social media powerhouses that offered curated videos. The behemoth that is Instagram now wants in on the game, too.
Instagram continues to grow with over 400 million users, while Twitter has peaked at 320 million monthly active users. As for Snapchat, there are more than 100 million netizens using the service every day.
On top of its daily users, Snapchat just reported 4 billion video views per day. In terms of views, that puts Snapchat in the same league as Facebook, Instagram's parent company.
The star of this story, of course, is Instagram. It literally follows the path Snapchat has paved for curated videos. Launched on Halloween — when social media is primed and ready for pics and vids of costumed children, adults, as well as pets — Instagram picked the perfect time of the year to get more people double-tapping to "heart" its content.
Available only to U.S. residents right now, users in the country can check out Instagram's curated content by tapping on the "Explore" tab (with the magnifying glass icon). There, they will be able to watch content handpicked by Instagram's specialized team of content hunter-gatherers. Those who want their videos featured on the round-the-clock curated video service just have to tag their content with #IGHalloween.
User-generated content is good, but even regular users love checking their favorite celebrities' posts just as much, if not more. Instagram sure is making use of its biggest celebrity users to its advantage.
Some of the big names featured on IG's rolling video stream include supermodel Heidi Klum getting her costume ready for Halloween; astronaut Scott Kelly aboard the International Space Station; singer-songwriter John Mayer; and the U.S. first family, the Obamas.
Will all that star power be enough to steal the limelight away from Snapchat and Twitter on their curated video streams? Time will tell. In the next phase of social media consumption of video, however, Instagram's biggest competition will be from the one whose path it is following: Snapchat.
