Social media has been in the news quite a bit recently, with Instagram introducing multiple account management, Twitters algorithm change, the Facebookification of Instagram (the online petition now has over 300,000 signatures!), and now Snapchat’s newest cache of features.
The newest additions to our favourite social networks are all pretty similar to one another, and while some users (such as the Instagram crowd) will rebel against the changes, most users enjoy the familiarity that is provided.
Can’t we all be friends?
It’s important to realise that Social Networks, or more specifically – their features, aren’t mutually exclusive. Sure, Facebook has the News Feed, but this is something that they share with Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Tumblr. The only real difference between the five is the way that the companies choose to order that data.However, sometimes users don’t like this, as Instagram are finding out to their peril, and Twitter found out with the #RIPTwitter hashtag, and generally that’s the only time you’ll hear about it, as companies are tweaking algorithms all of the time.
It’s all about you…
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Tumblr are all in constant battle to package the data that they collect and display it in the most attractive package for both users and advertisers. If one social network is doing something and succeeding with it, e.g. Facebook’s News Feed relevancy algorithm, then the others will not be far behind. It just makes business sense.
The Social Networks all having the same features also has the added benefit of familiarity for users. Chances are, if you know how to use one Social Network, you know how to use them all.
In Conclusion
So if, like me, you find yourself reading about all of these new changes to Social Networks and thinking to yourself “didn’t instagram just do that?”, yes they did. Now you know why.