Instagram

Instagram is a social media site that is very popular among the younger generation. Its main purpose is for posting pictures online to share with your followers. You’re also able to post videos and boomerangs (a short video without sound that plays forwards and backwards for a few seconds). This content can either be posted to your feed or on your story, which will only allow your followers to view it for 24 hours. Instagram is a great site to stay connected and communicate with friends and family. It can even be used to meet new people online. The target audience is people from ages 18 to 29, but is most popular among 18 to 24 year olds. Instagram makes its revenue through advertising. By using visual graphics, more people click on links to what Instagram is advertising because of the appeal it has. Instagram is able to post these ads to people’s feed even if they aren’t following the company being advertised. One tip I would offer is to set your account to private if you don’t want the public to view your profile. This way, only your followers can view your posts. Another feature I use a lot on Instagram is “Reels,” which contains short videos created by other users. It’s a great form of entertainment but can take up a lot of your time.

Snapchat

Snapchat is another social media site that is used mainly for communication. It started with only being able to communicate by sending pictures with a caption. It now allows regular text messaging, group chats, and video calls. Like Instagram, it has a feature called “stories” that you can post to that your friends can view for 24 hours. You’re also able to read different magazines and watch news channels. Also like Instagram, advertising these different magazines and channels is how Snapchat receives its revenue. Snapchat’s target audience is 13 to 29 year olds, which reaches to more younger people than Instagram does. The biggest age group that uses Snapchat is 13 to 17 year olds. One feature I use all the time on Snapchat is Memories. It’s a place that stores saved pictures and videos that don’t take up as much space if they were saved in your photos on your phone.

 

Sources used:

https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-demographics/#:~:text=Instagram%20is%20most%20popular%20with,(followed%20shortly%20by%20Snapchat).

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/030915/how-instagram-makes-money.asp#:~:text=Like%20Facebook%2C%20Instagram%20makes%20its,young%20and%20global%20user%20base.

https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/#SC-demos

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/061915/how-snapchat-makes-money.asp#:~:text=Snapchat%20generates%20nearly%20all%20of%20its%20revenue%20from%20ads&text=Snap%20generates%20substantially%20all%20of,revenue%20accelerated%20in%20Q3%202020.