The future of Instagram looks fun, funky and a whole lot more filtered! That’s because they’ve recently opened up the Spark AR filter creation platform for all users, allowing anyone to create augmented reality filters and publish them on Instagram stories! This will open a whole host of new options for users, expanding on an already vast offering of visuals, which will see thousands of new users not only using the filters but creating their own, meaning Instagram won’t have to rely on internal designers for those funky filters!
When Snap made this leap in early 2018, more than 250,000 individual effects and lenses were submitted within a year. These filters were viewed more than 15 billion times, a mind-boggling stat that you can bet will be surpassed by Instagram – especially when you consider it has more users, is widely more popular and has over 500 million daily story users! On top of that Snap managed to snag 9 million users off the back of Spark AR, with surges in downloads around two particularly popular filters, ’baby face’ and ‘gender swap’. (You know what we’re talking about).
With IG’s size, pull and popularity, top content creators and AR enthusiasts will be flocking to the platform to create the latest craze and expand their own business. In turn, this will bolster Instagram’s options without them having to do any internal work, making the whole story experience much more exciting and engaging for regular users – giving brands more options for personalising their content and almost certainly ensuring soaring numbers on story usage and general usage across the platform. A win-win for all, or so it seems!
