September 25, 2017
SnapChat was once the simplest, most fun and interactive way for millennials to stay in contact with their friends. It emphasized private, intimate, frivolous, person-to-person, temporary messaging that this demographic so loves.
Snapchsat’s influence on other social media sites (what the heck is with this dancing hot dog?!) was immediate. Others began to copy its features like nobody’s business.
But although SnapChat has news stories, unlike Twitter, it leaves less room for more serious discussion and sharing on a large scale about things happening globally in real-time. Such limits are perhaps why snaps are often then shared to Twitter and Facebook.
Further, people who want to feel connected to the outside world may find the information on SnapChat limited. When you follow a popular person or organization, there is no suggestions for you to follow similar stories nor are there options for users to simply explore what’s trending on SnapChat.
Even YouTube displays the videos that are trending, and users love that because they want to remain in the know. Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and even YouTube send you notifications for the most arbitrary things. That is a clever way of reminding us to use their apps. SnapChat is out of the loop on that one.
While it still does a fairly good job of changing filters and bringing our bitmojis to life, the novelty of these features and their viral popularity are gone. Even Jamaicans seem to be abandoning it.
Instagram is the winner in all of this. Although IG Stories weren’t as popular in the beginning – people posted just their Snap names to protest IG copying SnapChat and to encourage their followers to watch their day-to-day lives on SnapChat – they have since taken off, big time.
And since Instagram also offers permanent posts and captions and even live Stories, it clearly has stolen SnapChat’s spotlight. The ability to tag in IGStories also increases search-ability and gives users more of a global presence than SnapChat allows.