Snapchat vs Instagram Stories

It may seem like I am a bit late to the party as Instagram Stories has been up and running since August, however I wanted to give myself a couple of months to try it out. Here’s what this fashion and beauty blogger has to say about both platforms.

First off I’ll discuss my feelings regarding Snapchat.

When I first started using Snapchat I was immediately in love! What fun I had with the filters, emojis, etc. It runs really smoothly and it’s great that you can use old photos and videos from your camera roll. It’s also cool that you can send a snap to just one friend if you have something private to say. Just recently you can now choose what order you’d like to watch people’s stories in.

Now for the not-so-good things. I find the Snapchat interface not very user friendly. It took way too long for me to figure everything out and I had to Google how to work it more than once. Not very fun. And the ads are extremely annoying and can pop up during a snap at any time. I also feel that it is difficult to find friends on it unless you know their user name or scan their snap icon. And the last thing that bothers me about Snapchat (at least for me) is getting followers is near to impossible. And it’s not a matter of what I’m posting because I posted the same content on Instagram Stories and got lots of views.

Now to discuss Instagram Stories.

One big pro is that I am having lots of people view my content. And out of that there has been more interaction and views to my blog. You can also choose what order you want to watch people’s stories in. I found it really easy to use – only had to Google one thing. And that’s pretty much all the pros.

The con list is bigger. Instagram Stories has very limited filters and emojis – only different colour filters (no being a bee, deer, etc.) and whatever emojis you can use in a text message. It is often slow to load and freezes during videos. You can’t send a story to just one recipient you can only limit who sees what. A big bummer for me is that you can’t go into your camera roll and send whatever you want. It does allow you to choose from your camera roll, but only something taken in the last 24 hours. No throwbacks allowed! My only consolation is that I can upload whatever to Snapchat, then save it to my camera roll, then post it on Instagram Stories. What a pain though! That is also the way you can use all the fun filters on Instagram Stories too.

So it would seem that Snapchat is the way to go, however I have chosen Instagram Stories. Say what?!? Let me explain. I don’t want to spend my time trying to get followers on Snapchat. Believe me I tried for two months and I have under ten followers. I would rather spend time creating fun, interesting content on Instagram Stories and importing the stuff from my camera roll, filters, and emojis via Snapchat. It’s still a pain, but now I have the best of both worlds. I am simply waiting until Instagram Stories gets better filters, emojis, allows me to grab anything I want from my camera roll, and starts running more smoothly. Then it’s bye-bye Snapchat.

Hope this helps you out if you’re still on the fence about these two apps. Which one do you like best and why? Let me know in the comments below.