As everyone might have noticed, there have a been a trend of major updates that been happening to our major social media platforms. The one that I'll be focusing is Instagram and its new "stories" feature. And before I fully continue:

Yes, they basically copied Snapchat's format.

Even Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom informally admitted in an interview with Techcrunch that, "They deserve all the credit." But he goes on further to say, "This isn’t about who invented something. This is about a format, and how you take it to a network and put your own spin on it.”

At this point, Instagram is already established for taking single, quality images to upload on the app, whereas Snapchat is established in implementing (temporary) image messaging,in order to build its base. With Instagram involved in Snapchat's format, it does bring into some several new things we can expect in the future.

But to truly cover that, here are the major points in using Instagram Stories:

Pros:

1. Stories appear in the top row of the main feed and is sorted by who you interact with the most.

2. Anyone of the followers that you approve of on your account can see your Instagram Stories. By that, it means you block specific viewers from seeing them.

3. As long the account is public, you don't necessarily need to follow someone to view their Instagram Stories.

4. You can hold the screen to pause a slideshow or tap to the left to go back a slide, as opposed to Snapchat's one way, time-limited, progressing stories.

5. Instagram offers three brush types for drawing: standard, translucent highlighter, and color-outlined neon, as opposed to Snapchat's single brush.

Cons:

1. Instagram Stories' that have been made within a day are not capable of being saved like Snapchat Memories.

2. Also, older content from your camera roll cannot be used in the same way as Memories, where Snapchat put a white border with a time-stamp.

3. Instagram currently lacks many in-depth features that Snapchat currently uses. These include location filters, selfie filters, stickers, and other effects... so far.

4. Instagram Stories doesn't have an alert� when people take a screenshot of your story.

5. When you tap someone's story, you start from the beginning, rather than where you left off.

Why am I going over this? It's to give you a better understanding of how businesses can take advantage of that understanding.

In addition to not only running ads from an app from its business profile (or Facebook), they are also provided with a much better opportunity to connect with their direct followers, and even potential ones that visit it to see what it's about.

This helps businesses to not rely on Snapchat to pay for space on there, since they are actually capable of building a much more trackable marketing campaign and invest funds on the feed, instead of cutting into the Stories feed (for now at least).

So for now, while it might not experience in huge turnover from Snapchat users, Instagram can claim the victory in attracting more businesses in getting engaged with their followers and possibly involving more advertisers with the app.

That's the story that their building. How will you build yours?