Snapchat vs Facebook: rivalry of two social media giants

As a writer, the best part about Facebook and Snapchat is that you can never have enough of them. Facebook is an undoubted social media champion having a firm hold on mobile advertising, and news, but Snapchat is its most challenging competitor ever encountered.

Snapchat has energy, vitality and a strong feel factor something its more than 100 million daily users want, and it moves fast. Combine that with its attractive demographics—86 percent of Snapchatters are between the ages of 13 and 34—and you can see why these two companies are now battling it out in one of the most passive-aggressive rivalries since the Cold War.

There, however, isn’t any mud-slinging; both companies just let their product updates speak volumes. Snapchat woos media companies with its roster of Discover channels; a few months later, Facebook woos them with Instant Articles. If Facebook launches Sports Stadium to create a home for fans watching a big game; nine days later, Snapchat introduces live score and stat filters for pictures and videos from NBA games and other events.

If we compare users’ participation on both platforms- Snapchat and Facebook-owned Instagram- Instagram’s 20 percent participation pales in comparison to 60 percent of Snapchat’s users who upload personal items every day.Not that long ago, Facebook tried to thwart Snapchat by creating a rival app. In late 2012, the company released Poke. In mid-2014, it fired off Slingshot. Both bombed.

Today, however, Facebook has evolved a strategy so that it now uses several of its established products to give its dramatically larger user base an alternative. Instagram continues to subtly encourage more selfie self-expression, and in an effort to satisfy users who like Snapchat’s more private communication, Facebook Moments lets them share photos only with select friends. Facebook’s rollout of its Live streaming video product includes such Snapchat-like features as on-screen doodling and filter overlays.

Not surprisingly, Facebook is also reportedly toying with launching its own camera app, which, like Snapchat, would prioritize creating and sharing by opening into a camera view. But this is just half the story. If Snapchat is leading the charge in the social-sharing escalation, it has a long way to go to rival Facebook’s financial leadership. Rapidly growing, but very young, Snapchat is reportedly shooting for $350 million in 2016 revenue. By contrast, looking only at Facebook’s Instagram business, analysts are so bullish that they anticipate the service could generate between $2 billion to $3 billion in revenue this year.

Overall, Facebook’s expected to generate $26 billion in 2016. Advertisers love Facebook’s sophisticated targeting capabilities and its unprecedented reach. But then the social leader still needs to decide just how patient it should be, and just how closely it wants to clone Snapchat to beat it.

The drama is still unfolding and surely holds lots and lots of twists and turns to watch out for.