Dear Facebook, Stop Turning Everything Into A Snapchat Story Clone

Snapchat story clones are cropping up everywhere in Facebook-owned apps and it’s not necessary. Would you ever want to post the same story across four different platforms? Or course not.

Instagram stories are fine – the sole focus on imagery makes this platform perfect for rapid visual storytelling. But Facebook’s Messenger Day? WhatsApp Status? This is getting a little silly now…

Just stop and take a breather for a second. Pop the kettle on, have a cuppa tea (not too milky) and take stock of why you’re making all the wrong moves here in an attempt to move quickly with the times:

1. Text-based platforms don’t tell good stories

I get your hastily processed thought here – “it’s worked on one platform, so why can’t it work on another?” With that in mind, you expand this mindset to Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

However, you’ve elected to do this with two text-based platforms where image content is secondary. It’s just not how anyone will logically use these platforms.

Every app doesn’t need to be a Swiss Army Knife of social interactions… Just stick to what each you’re good at and build on that.

And maybe this is Facebook’s attempt to devalue the core features of Snapchat by putting them everywhere, rather than compete directly. But you should know by now from the multitude of companies who have fallen victim to user-vitriol that underhanded corporate tricks don’t go unnoticed.

2. Snapchat’s audience aren’t very interested in Facebook

Without a doubt, Snapchat’s biggest audience is amongst 12-24-year-olds, who have been trained through regular app usage to post 8,000 snaps every second. Instagram fits more logically into this visual-based audience’s psyche, making a storytelling platform on here ideal.

Facebook is an entirely different beast that doesn’t reward this level of millennial narcissism – with features that attract older audiences. Text-based advancements in Messenger have become useful over time, and WhatsApp’s persistence as a ‘tool’ over a content-based app still makes it one of the best platforms to date.

But adding features that will attract the younger crowd do not make a platform they deem to be unnecessary or “boring” any more attractive. They already have their social status within Snapchat and don’t want to spend their time sharing the same story across four different apps.

We’re all for positive user experiences, right? Well, let the idea of opening three different apps, taking three separate pictures and decorating them three times over, just to share on each network sink in for a second. This is not user-intuitive, it’s user-hostile.

Just stop it, Facebook. You already have one good Snapchat story clone – please just let the rest of your apps stick to what they are good at.

UPDATE

Facebook Stories are now a thing. This is getting ridiculous.