Instagram recently introduce Instagram Direct, their new feature to send disappearing photos and videos to groups or friends within the app. As you may recall, this feature is very similar to the original premise of Snapchat. Snapchat began as an app to send disappearing photos and videos to friends, before later incorporating the concept of Stories. Instagram has introduced these components in reverse order, continuing their insistence to look strikingly similar to Snapchat.
From my early experiments with Instagram Direct, you cannot choose the length of the photo you set as your Story or send to a friend. In Snapchat, you're able to choose it's length between 1 and 10 seconds. This is frustrating if you're sending a photo to a friend that requires them to look a bit longer. Several friends responded that they didn't have enough time to see an Instagram Direct photo I sent them.
While the lack of time length control is frustrating, the ability to send to groups is convenient within Instagram. You can develop groups of people to send photos or videos to, which are saved and only require one click to later send to that same group. You can also send a snap to multiple people in Snapchat, but those recipients have to be selected individually each time.
The ability to send content directly to individuals or groups may not directly influence your social media strategy at a higher education institution, but it's definitely something to consider as you analyze how your audience uses both apps. Where do you want them to view your university's content (most likely in the Stories feature of both apps)?
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