The Social Wars: How Snapchat Can Fight Back Against Facebook
Facebook is the undisputed champion of social media and pretty much on its way to becoming a monopoly at this point. Watching Snapchat trying to go it alone against Facebook has revealed just how ridiculously powerful they have become. Instead of selling to Facebook, Snapchat decided to face them head-on and failed to appreciate a simple truth — anything they can do, Facebook can and will do better. Facebook’s copy-cat approach with Instagram Stories (which are now rolling out across Facebook) is a massive hit and with the scale they have, it makes it easy to keep users from adopting (and continuing to use) Snapchat — they are betting that most of the almost 2 billion FB/Instagram users don’t really want to have to learn how to use another app and check it constantly.
Although the Snapchat team is now obscenely rich and riding high in post-IPO bliss, the market will not tolerate Snapchat’s sluggish growth rate and the stock stands to take on a twitter-esque trajectory (it’s already down 17% since its IPO day open) unless they pull a rabbit out of their hat. This trend will likely spook advertisers a bit and only make it more challenging for them to lure ad dollars away from Facebook — especially since their advertising approach is essentially a clone of Facebook’s approach.
Given this reality, I think Snapchat’s best chance at survival is going to come from embracing a challenger mindset and working very hard to de-position Facebook — making them look like the party that no one really wants to be at anymore (but ends up at because people are lazy and don’t want to try that new spot down the block that serves the same drinks but plays slightly better music). Snapchat needs to strike back now with a powerful message about who they are and why they are cooler, younger and more fun than Facebook. Snapchat needs to develop their version of the “Mac vs. PC” campaign. It’s been a while since that campaign ran, but I’m sure you can remember how it permeated culture, made the goliath in the category look extremely lame and ultimately breathed new life into Apple’s business. Snapchat needs to hit back now and start carving out a unique space in consumer’s minds or Facebook’s scale and execution will make them just seem like a “me too” product that isn’t worth your time (which is a bit crazy since Snapchat’s core product is being copied by Facebook).
It’s going to be a tough game to play, but if Snapchat keeps playing defense, Facebook wins. On a separate note, a healthy Snapchat could also actually end up being a relatively good thing for Facebook and stave off any cries of “monopoly” that will inevitably come if they continue this pattern of killing off new entrants (by copying their features) or acquiring anyone that poses a real threat to their business (e.g. Instagram). It’s always good to be the king, but heavy is the head that wears the crown.
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