Just this week, I read an article which stated that Snapchat was slowly overtaking Facebook as the most popular social media app and service available. For those of you who don’t know, Snapchat is an app which allows users to send disappearing messages and pictures to any of their contacts in the app.
On the other hand, Facebook is pretty much the benchmark for any social startup to strive towards. Snapchat is worth a measly 10 billion dollars compared to Facebook’s 245 million. Yet, in terms of active users, Snapchat has around 200 million, while Facebook boasts 350 million. So how exactly is a company consisting of 50 employees working out of a single office building managing to gain ground on the largest provider of social networking in the world? Well, Snapchat seems to understand today’s population very well, and has done everything right to attract more users.
The thing that sets Snapchat apart from a service like Facebook or Twitter is the fact that conversation is held through photos and now, even videos. The reason Snapchat is gaining more and more popularity is because it actually facilitates face to face communication; something which, while we may not be aware of it, our generation of screen-addicted teenagers actually need. The ability to quickly send a picture from anytime, anywhere to any of your friends is huge. Snapchat took Facebook’s friends feature, Twitter’s constant status updates and Instagram’s unending stream of pictures and turned them
into one streamlined app. There is almost no way Snapchat would not be a smash success.
But, interestingly enough, while vanilla Snapchat was successful, Snapchat’s popularity absolutely exploded after the introduction of Snapchat stories in 2013. These stories are really where Snapchat made itself distinct from other social media like Facebook. The first difference is in the fact that Snapchat stories feel a lot more like television then social media. They stay up for 24 hours at a time, t
hen disappear forever. So, if you miss your chance, you might never be able to see that hilarious story one of your friends posted. The second difference is the fact that you have to keep your finger on the screen in order to continue to view the story. This means the idle, mindless browsing that happens in places like Twitter and Facebook cannot happen with Snapchat. Snapchat forces you to pay attention to what you’re actually looking at. And the third difference is in the fact that messages and photos disappear as well. This prompts users to reply quickly and as soon as possible, otherwise, as most Snapchat users have experienced, their messages may disappear and lead to the string of the conversation being completely lost. This makes it extremely hard to leave a Snapchat conversation alone.
The last thing which Snapchat has done is the Discover feature. This is one of my favorite features available through any social media. This form of news on social media is short, sweet, and effective. You click into the news source you want, scroll through small screen caps or short videos, decide on one you like, and swipe down. That will bring you to the actual article itself. With only so many slots for each source to post news, they have already done most of the work for you, picking out the most major news events and articles of the day. All you have to do is decide which one you want to read the most. But, not only does Discover allow you to read news, it provides livefeeds from events across the world provided by the people who are there. From football games to
city tours to the blizzard in New York, there are feeds from every corner of the globe provided by Snapchat users themselves. The mostly amateur videography provided has a certain charm. It makes you feel as if you really are at the event with thousands of other people.
Snapchat was originally brushed off as another niche, gimmick app. They definitely are not anymore. Try these numbers on for size. The season finale for The Walking Dead, quite possibly the most popular show on TV right now, attracted 14.8 million people. Snapchat’s Discover feed for New York’s Snowcopalypse, when NYC was hit by huge blizzards, attracted nearly 24.8 million people. Snapchat was able to attract more than double the audience of The Walking Dead to literally watch snow fall (sure, there were hedgehogs, but still). No matter how hard they try, other social media giants cannot ignore Snapchat any longer. Facebook had better watch its back because Snapchat and its 200 million users are coming for them.
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