Ah – Snapchat. Yet another newish social media channel (launched in 2011). One that started out very niche, and did something slightly different with posts – they disappeared after a set amount of time.
Teens loved it; parents, not so much.
A lot has changed in five years. Snapchat is quickly becoming a go-to place for brands. Which means it can also work for us libraries!
Here are some recent facts about Snapchat:
- Snapchat is more popular than Twitter at the moment
- Snapchat has recently been the most popular app in Apple’s App Store (#2 right now)
- Snapchat have over 100 million users
- Millennials make up 71% of active users (18-34 demographic)
- Roughly 70% of users are women
- 1 billion Snapchat Stories are viewed every day
And here’s the biggest fact (well, ok – not really a fact, but …) – if you’re over 40, Snapchat seems to weird us out. Adults tend to find Snapchat confusing. Why? I think it’s because the app doesn’t have the normal labeling we have come to expect.
When you open up the app, you don’t get a box to type in – you get the camera. There aren’t menus – you either swipe left, right, or up (or you can click on the unlabeled icons).
So yeah – it’s not made for us. It’s made for people who instinctively know to just play around with it until they figure it out.
Wait a sec … why can’t that be us, too?
I think it can. Stay tuned for my next post on some “how to use it” basics!
Hi David,
I am a big fan of Snapchat, it was one of the very few social apps to lure me into early adoption. I’m in my early thirties; young enough to feel easily synchronised with new apps as they’re launched and old enough to be discerning of their features.
What I like about Snapchat is the impermanence of the memory; its ephemeral nature that isn’t seen to that extent in other social apps. I like that opening a Snapchat often comes with no context and that it happens in real time. My friends snaps regularly make me laugh at the most unexpected times. It has a lot of potential as a conduit for spontaneous creativity.
Other visual apps (Instagram for example) are often so heavily curated the message of sharing is lost. I find Instagram to be less about sharing and more about social validation and superficiality, but I digress.
Snapchat is less about how impressive you can make your photos appear and more about how well you can communicate the atmosphere of the present moment and as result, feels more personal. On Instagram I will present, promote and curate, but on Snapchat I will *share*. With Snapchat, sharing feels like the end game, not the method.
I work with social media in my library but I never really thought about introducing Snapchat, I have enough trouble convincing my social circles it’s more than a sexting app (its initial iteration). So I am interested in hearing more of your thoughts on the topic and glad Snapchat is appearing on the radar in this space.
-Jacinta
I’m also a fan at a personal level. I enjoyed it more once I started understanding the idea of “stories” (liked linked snaps that you can view in a row) so you can get an idea of how someone’s day is going. I also like it for quick note-sending with a little more context than a like or a fave on FB/Twitter. I also follow Comedy Central’s “brand” whatever that means and I sometimes look at their event-specific stuff. I learned a lot about Hajj and Holi.
Cool – thanks for sharing. I like your differentiation between Snapchat and Instagram – I think that’s a very good description of each of them! Let me know if I get something wrong about Snapchat – I’m still learning, and use these blog posts as a brain dump while in the midst of figuring it out.
I’d agree with that – to me, the concept of Stories is much more like a Facebook or Twitter timeline. So it makes sense to me.
Totally agreed. I’ve had family and friends avoid texting just to snap chat instead. It’s definitely more work, but I think the visual provides far more impact than I realized. Our Museum here has a course on Digital Literacy and to quickly summarize 90% of visual literacy is imagery, not text.