Are social media apps cloning each other?

Have you ever observed that to stop yourself from doomscrolling, you uninstall social media apps like Snapchat and Instagram, or even Facebook, if you still use it these days? Yet somehow, you find yourself scrolling through YouTube videos, or especially YouTube Shorts, that are quite similar to Instagram Reels or Snapchat videos?

You're not imagining things. Sometimes it's literally the same content, just on a different platform.

The social media landscape has transformed into a hall of mirrors, where every platform increasingly reflects the features of its competitors, which is reshaping how we consume content and how marketers reach us.

Over the past decade, what was once a diverse landscape of distinct platforms with unique identities has evolved into a standardised environment where innovation is quickly absorbed and replicated by competitors.

The pattern typically begins when a feature introduced by one platform demonstrates strong user retention and engagement metrics, prompting competitors to develop similar capabilities.

The motivations behind this rampant replication are multifaceted. When a platform incorporates characteristics proven successful elsewhere, it significantly reduces the cognitive load and learning curve for users, which is vital for securing new users and ensuring a smooth transition.

Why innovate when you can wait for someone else to prove a concept works? By waiting for a competitor to launch and validate a feature with mass user adoption successfully, established platforms try to reduce the risks significantly.

TikTok's short-form vertical video format has been replicated by Instagram through Reels and by YouTube through Shorts. Snapchat's Stories feature, which introduced disappearing content, was subsequently adopted by both Instagram and WhatsApp in their respective Stories and Status features.

Additionally, Snap Map, a geo-location sharing tool with over 400 million monthly active users, was replicated when Instagram launched its Friends Map feature in 2025.

Location sharing on Instagram Map is off by default and updates only when a user opens the app, meaning it does not provide real-time location data. Snap Map allows users to choose between updating their location only when the app is open or in real-time.

Instagram also provides real-time location sharing through direct messages, but the feature is limited to one hour, unlike Apple’s Find My and Snap Map, which allow indefinite sharing.

Meta has also demonstrated internal feature convergence, with Instagram Notes' disappearing text status functionality informing similar updates to WhatsApp's About status feature, which now defaults to 24-hour expiration.

Product tagging capabilities have also expanded across platforms, with both Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts incorporating shopping features that allow creators to link products directly within short-form video content. While Instagram can take you to the product through a clickable website link on reel, YouTube Shorts show a tappable sticker of the product being advertised in the video.

While platforms have adopted similar formats, engagement patterns differ. According to 2025 industry reports, YouTube Shorts maintains an average video engagement rate of 5.91%, compared to 5.53% for Instagram Reels and 5.75% for TikTok. However, Instagram Reels reports a potential reach of 2.5 billion, substantially higher than TikTok's 2.05 billion potential reach, suggesting the platform prioritises content distribution breadth over interaction depth.

The shift toward short-form video has affected other content formats. Instagram has reduced organic reach for photo posts by an estimated 22% over the past year as the platform prioritises Reels in user feeds and algorithmic recommendations.

The convergence of platform features presents both opportunities and challenges for marketers. The similarity of formats enables content repurposing; a single piece of content can be adapted across multiple platforms with relatively minor adjustments.

Despite the overwhelming trend toward conformity, some platforms are successfully maintaining differentiation by doubling down on their core strengths.

YouTube data from 2025 indicates that channels utilising Shorts alongside long-form content experience an 18% higher average watch time per session compared to channels without Shorts, suggesting the format functions effectively as a discovery tool for deeper content.

X, formerly known as Twitter, has maintained greater differentiation by emphasising real-time, text-based conversation alongside video content. The platform's structure continues to prioritise threaded discussions and immediate commentary over produced video content.

As platforms continue to adopt each other's features, the competitive differentiation increasingly lies not in unique functionality but in algorithmic sophistication, network effects, and the ability to optimise for each platform's specific engagement patterns.

The question isn't whether platforms will keep copying each other; they will. The question is whether your brand will get lost in the sameness or find ways to stand out by being genuinely, authentically different. In an ocean of identical content, authenticity isn't just a nice-to-have; it can be your life raft.