A
running joke I have with my friends is that I
am fueled by caffeine and Wi-Fi. If I have these two items in place, it
really can’t be all that bad. If I have neither, I’m probably not
going to be very functional. Truth be told, I live a lot of my life on
the Internet — both on my computer and on my smartphone — and I spend a
little too more time on social media than I care to admit.
One
trend that has become all too
clear in recent years is that every social network is effectively
borrowing features from every other social network. The “like” may have
been popularized by Facebook, but you’ll find it on just about every
other social media platform these days. Even Twitter switched from
“favorite” to “like.”
And if you want to stay competitive in any industry or any vertical, you might have to
“borrow” some inspiration from your competitors too.
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A
prime example of this is Instagram Stories. People can snap pictures
or shoot videos, apply some filters and doodle on top, and then share
this string of photos and videos together as a cohesive “story” before
the whole thing “deletes” itself after a 24 hour
period.
Does
that sound familiar? It should, because that’s exactly what Snapchat
is all about. The Facebook-owned Instagram must have felt that it was
losing some of its audience to the more millennial-focused Snapchat.
The look and feel of Instagram Stories is so strikingly similar, the
connection simply cannot be denied.
But
Instagram can leverage its existing advantages and make its “Stories”
even bigger than its humbler Snapchat-based origins. Instagram is much
more public and more mainstream, boasting a significantly larger active
user base. People said a lot of the same things when Instagram
introduced video to counter the rise of Vine, and now video is just as
integral a part of Instagram as its square
photos.
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You
don’t have to be quite as blatant and brazen about borrowing
inspiration though. You can look at what’s working elsewhere and
integrate it into what you’re already doing in a new and creative way.
Twitter Moments is a good
example.
On
some level, it could be related to the trending news section on
Facebook, which itself “borrowed” by the trending section on Twitter
itself. On another level, you might say it’s similar to a news
aggregator like Pulse. On yet another level, the automatic “unfollow”
after a story is done could be related to the fleeting nature of
Snapchat.
With
Twitter Moments, you get all the “biggest stories in the world”
presented to you through the “best tweets” on the subject, all without
having to “worry about finding the right accounts to follow to get the
story.” You may have followed a hashtag before, but that might
simultaneously be not enough and too overwhelming with the deluge of
tweets.
At
the end of the day, you have to come to the realization that you don’t
have to be first in order to be successful. Great men have stood on the
shoulders of giants for centuries. I’m not advocating for outright
theft, but don’t assume that you need to innovate in isolation either.
Just
look at the perpetual power struggle and trading of “inspiration”
between Samsung and Apple. Neither company would be where they are
today and neither company would have the devices they have today if the
other one didn’t exist. Whether you’re a fan of the Galaxy phones or
the iPhones, we’re all better off for this contentious relationship. Just like Twitter and Facebook,
Instagram and Snapchat.
To Your Success,
Wright Chase
Wright Chase
1147 Russellwood Court
Buffalo Grove IL 60089
USA
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