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I am 25 and from my observations of social media-active people I connect with that were born and are living in the US, it's a split between instagram and snapchat. Many are active on snapchat stories and instagram. My observation is that that IG is more popular with urban, liberal, artistic (people create and/or sell art), style-oriented, older audience. It feels more professional and public, and it's common to follow accounts like celebs, artists, businesses, or generally people you haven't met in person. Artistic and lifestyle people will use IG chat to communicate and connect. For example a yoga studio or music venue may post events there. It feels like it's taking the role of a more image-oriented facebook. The stories are very popular too. Snapchat is (in my observation) more popular with midwestern/rural/suburban people, and the network is more friends of friends or maybe people you met at parties. It's much more casual and it's more likely you have met the people you connect with. Trendy urban people I have met have shunned it for a while and think it's childish, but some are coming back. Either way it's the primary way I communicate with certain contacts besides imessage/sms (mainly through the chat).
I'll post something to a story and someone will comment on it or vice versa. Anecdotally snapchat was very popular in high school and early college and then waned, but became more popular again recently for some reason (I'm getting more and more views on my stories than before even though I'm not adding friends that frequently). Also when I talk to foreigners, they see it as a childish thing that was a fad in the 2010s, but people in the US (especially suburban types) are very active on it and have been for a while. I'm bullish on snapchat and it's my largest "fun"/risk investment in a single company because of the stickiness it has with people my age and younger, specifically in a more midwestern rural/suburban demographic. Also the snapmap feature is phenomenal and will be the next thing other tech companies start imitating. |