Doug's Rant #2: Snapchat Is Still Here and the Mosseri Massacre
I didn't plan "Doug's Rants" to be weekly. I figured I would keep notes of happenings in social media, annoyances I come across as a digital marketer as well as the cool stuff. But two things happened this week that I wanted to comment on right away since I think they are pretty buzzworthy so let's get to it!
Snapchat / Snap Inc. is still a social media power...
I always thought it was funny how the teenagers were using Snapchat in 2013-15 and mention of it first appears on the Frameable Faces blog back on 7/11/13 (on an old Doug's Rant haha!). I played with it for a couple years just as myself before we started a Frameable Faces snapchat profile in February 2015. Sometime around the beginning of 2016 the "rockstar marketers" decided they would dominate the platform. They would always have stories going about their hustle around the clock with all the cool graphics and it was actually pretty lame. Marketers "marketing" to each other and then bragging about it on social media groups on Facebook. We followed a few of them and borrowed some tips and tricks I guess, but it didn't fundamentally change the fact that we were there primarily for senior pictures - to share behind the scenes snap stories which we still do.
Then Instagram launched "stories" which was a direct copy of Snapchat in August 2016 (more on this in a minute) and the rockstars went hard trying to out-predict each other about Snap's obvious demise like they all KNEW it before the others knew it. They loved to laugh and gloat at the sorry saps who were still on Snapchat and hadn't started killing it on IG stories already. Blah blah blah..... Here's a poll from one of those groups in one of the very last posts there that even mentions Snapchat on March 16, 2018. By a 3:1 margin of the 470 votes the marketers decreed that yes, Snapchat was dead. You can see I voted no and my comment.
We still use Snapchat and it's still fun and effective for us.
Then there was this announcement this week that prompted this little rant... here's a screenshot of the headline and a link to the article:
The news was actually that Snap's results were disappointing. But would a "dead" app lead a tech sell-off that moves the market 4 years after it "died"? Haha - of course not... Snap is still a social stalwart. I can't predict whether it will be a major player 5 or 10 years from now, but I've also known that marketers have been full of it in snickering at its demise.
Mosseri Massacre
Meanwhile I saw a couple tweets and a trend on twitter about Instagram that caught my eye, and once I got to the source....wow. Adam Mosseri is the head of Instagram (alhough when you're owned by Facebook/Meta are you really the head?), and he posted a video on Twitter to address some of the changes to the platform and answer questions. He got slaughtered. Ratioed, destroyed, scorned. If you still don’t know what it means to get “ratioed” on Twitter it means to get more replies than likes and generally that is not good. It usually means more people were triggered to call you out than to express support with a like. Not all replies are negative obviously but that’s generally what this means. Here’s Merriam-Webster’s take on it, and here’s the tweet below which includes the video…
At the moment I’m writing this the tweet is at 7226 likes and 9915 replies…. 😳 He talked about how they will indeed continue to support and focus on pics since it’s part of their heritage.
Um…..
Here’s my reply:
Mine was nicer than many believe me… and there were plenty of famous influencers who chimed in to let him have it. Look at this exchange with Chrissy Teigen (and look at those ratios!!!).
Just check it out for yourself - yikes. We’ll see how this plays out… I made it clear how I feel about it.
***I had to come back and edit this and add this article from Fortune I saw right after I hit “publish” where Zuck says they won’t be listening to any of the criticisms and will double down on showing more recommended garbage on Instagram.
What say you? Comment below!
M10 Social is owned by Doug Cohen in West Bloomfield, MI and provides social media training and digital marketing services from the Frameable Faces Photography studio Doug owns with his wife Ally. He can be reached there at tel:248-790-7317, by mobile at tel:248-346-4121 or via email at mailto:doug@frameablefaces.com. You can also connect with Doug on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram, and/or M10 Social on Twitter or Facebook, and check out his other biz www.VirtualPetcations.com while you’re at it!
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