In social media, as far as live events went, Twitter Inc (TWTR) used to be the undisputed champ. There’s a good argument to be made that it still is. But Facebook Inc (FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn’t get to where he is today by being standoffish, and now Facebook is diving head-first into a live sports part of its site, Facebook Sports Stadium.
Now Snapchat wants in on the live sports party, too. That’s bad news for both TWTR and FB.
Let’s take a look at what Snapchat’s doing — and planning on doing — and how that affects the likes of Facebook and Twitter.
The Gritty, Real Experience
TWTR, which rolled out its “Moments” tab last year after a period of exaggerated hype, allows users to see a visual representation of what’s trending, as photos and video-heavy tweets on five topics: “Today,” “News,” “Entertainment,” “Fun” and of course, “Sports.”
Twitter desperately needs something to help it gain traction, as miserable user growth numbers have sent the TWTR stock price cratering over the past year. Shares are down 66% from their 52-week high, even after today’s 10% bump sparked by talk that some big-time private investors may be interested in a buyout.
Snapchat’s sports feature could be a very real impediment to Twitter. Right now, Snapchat has merely partnered with Stats.com to overlay live scores above photo and video snaps from people attending NBA games, but that same feature will soon roll out with the NFL as well.
That “people attending NBA games” part is important. It’s unlike the requirements for posting content on FB or TWTR about live sports events, and makes the content all the more real, compelling and engagement-worthy.
Advertisers love engagement.
FB, on the other hand, will undoubtedly be less impacted by Snapchat’s efforts. In the early going, Snapchat’s “Live Score geofilters saw 20 million views from 51 games,” according to TechCrunch.
While stats from Facebook’s new Sports Stadium feature aren’t yet available, it’s safe to say FB’s 1.5 billion monthly active users have potential to generate substantially more views than that.
Still, I wouldn’t count Snapchat out just yet. It’s not a public company, so growth numbers aren’t readily available, but odds are stratospheric that Snapchat is growing far quicker than either FB or TWTR. Fortune recently reported that Snapchat users were viewing 7 billion videos/day — almost in line with FB’s 8 billion figure — and that views had tripled from 2 billion to 6 billion daily between May and November 2015.
Even if its push into sports doesn’t become a gamechanger, it will still take some ad dollars away from TWTR and FB.
And while Facebook is coming off a record quarter and is in no trouble whatsoever, Twitter is in a different situation entirely.
Considering that Business Insider recently reasoned Snapchat could have around 200 million users and growing, Twitter may be in even further trouble if Snapchat continues to snap up users’ time.
As of this writing, John Divine did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. You can follow him on Twitter at @divinebizkid or email him at editor@investorplace.com.
