The true measure of success for short-form video is its shareability in private channels like DMs or Slack. Content created with this goal in mind—focusing on the first three seconds and strong storytelling—will stay in the feed longer and achieve greater impact.

A large percentage of Snapchat users are not active on other major platforms like Pinterest, TikTok, or even Instagram. This makes it a crucial channel for reaching unique customer segments that marketers might otherwise miss entirely, forcing a rethink on channel diversification.

Getting users to reply directly to your Instagram Stories is a powerful signal to the platform's algorithm. It identifies your content as interactive, leading Instagram to show it to more of your followers. Use this for promoting events, guides, or other offers to increase organic visibility.

Unlike Twitter which may reward niche wit, Instagram virality depends on broad shareability. A product management meme account grew to 55k followers by focusing on relatable tropes (e.g., the PM vs. engineer dynamic) that professionals in adjacent roles would share with their peers, expanding the content's reach beyond its core audience.

To grow an established product, introduce new formats (e.g., Instagram Stories, Google AI Mode) as separate but integrated experiences. This allows you to tap into new user behaviors without disrupting the expectations and mental models users have for the core product, avoiding confusion and accelerating adoption.

Instead of using link stickers, prompt viewers to reply to an Instagram Story with a specific word via DM. This direct engagement signals relevance to the algorithm, increasing story visibility, while also creating a direct, conversational path to conversion.

All major social platforms will be forced to integrate live shopping to compete, just as they all adopted 'stories'. This is a fundamental shift in consumer behavior, not a fleeting trend. In China, 30% of all e-commerce transactions already happen via live shopping, indicating its massive scale and inevitability in the West.

The feature initially failed because users added only one 'best friend,' making a reply unlikely. It became successful when the team realized the core job was the emotional payoff of connection. They encouraged larger lists (20-30 people) to guarantee users would receive DMs, thus fulfilling that emotional need.

The next generation of social networks will be fundamentally different, built around the creation of functional software and AI models, not just media. The status game will shift from who has the best content to who can build the most useful or interesting tools for the community.