They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery and, without a doubt, Instagram copied what Snapchat brought to the table with the addition of the Story function on their app. They’e found immense success since the 5 months the feature was first introduced and now boasts of 150 million daily users; surpassing the latest user count provided by Snapchat. Success, of course, comes with a price and seeing as there’s a lot of people to tap using Instagram Stories, the company has decided to introduce ads between the content from your friends and personalities you may be following.
These ads include a 5-second photo or 15-second video that can, thankfully, be skipped. In terms of marketing, we can definitely see the reason behind the choice to introduce the ads but, as someone who just wants to browse though our friends’ stories or get a bit of a peek into the lives of personalities we follow, it may get a little annoying.
The announcement was made by Instagram a week ago and we haven’t experienced any disruptions just yet, but we’re fully expecting the number of ads popping up to increase in the weeks and months ahead.
