It’s really hard to say whether or not Snapchat will stand the test of time. Personally I think it might just be a fad!
For those of you who are not familiar with Snapchat, ill give you a brief introduction:
Snapchat
Snapchat is a mobile app you can download to your smartphone, which you can then use to “chat” with friends through photos, videos and captions. It’s like texting but you’re using pictures and videos. You can set your snap chats to last from one second up to ten seconds and you can carefully select who you want to send them to. Snapchat has a unique “self-destructing” feature whereby after the recipient has opened the Snapchat, it is deleted forever from the Snapchat server so no one can view it again. As well as sending snap chats to your friends you can also create your own story. This involves setting the snap chats you take as your “story” whereby all of your contacts on Snapchat are free to view your story as many times as they like in twenty four hours.
Snapchat has taken over its target market like a rash – thirteen to twenty three year olds who are addicted to their smartphones and submerge themselves in social media. Snapchat has replaced texting for most people, it’s quick, it’s easy and most importantly you can see where people are and what they’re doing.
However, recently I have found that peoples activity on Snapchat has decreased including my own. I was taking “selfies” left, right and centre in the beginning…even though I’m a bit camera shy believe it or not! It’s a good laugh sending funny pictures and captions to your friends and seeing their reactions in a corresponding Snapchat. I was mostly using it to have conversations with my friends because it seemed like much less effort than texting. It’s slowly but surely becoming less addictive and humerous because you are constantly receiving snapchats from your friends about anything and everything…from what they’re eating for dinner, to what they’re watching on TV. Everyone has jumped on the bandwagon and joined Snapchat, adding you and anyone else they barely know! I never look at people’s stories anymore because there are far too many and I’d probably fall asleep looking at half of them! I’m sure others will agree.
A big trend has emerged… people are now taking provocative photos of themselves and sending them to their friends/boyfriends/girlfriends using Snapchat, and they feel more liberal about doing it because they know that those photos get deleted after a few seconds. However, the general rule for the Internet goes something like this: If you put it on the internet, it will be there forever – even if you try to delete it after. It’s reassuring to know that Snapchat content is automatically deleted soon after it’s been viewed, but there are still ways to capture that content and save it… forever! The screen shot option available makes this tricky…even if you’ve only set your snapchats for one second, if the recipient is quick enough they can screen shot your picture. God only knows what will happed with it after that.
Businesses have also jumped on the band wagon as they see Snapchat as a massive opportunity. They try to add as many contacts as they can to send them “snaps” of their products or latest promotions. This sounds like a good idea in theory but being realistic, not many people are going to accept businesses as contacts on snap chat because you are not going to want to be bombarded on another form of social media, especially one so personal. Also the target market is quite young which I think does not relate to the use of snapchat for businesses unless they are promotions for that particular age group.
As previously stated the target market is aged so young and there are a lot of concerns from parents about Snapchat. A lot of users have been banned off Snapchat by their parents! If it’s not “young ones” being scolded for using Snapchat, it’s teenagers getting in trouble in school for inappropriately snap chatting themselves or even teachers!
Snap chat these days is being over used and either boring you or getting you into trouble..
Is it worth it? Will we all get sick of it soon?
I’m not sure…let me know what you think and answer this poll
Thanks for popping by 🙂
Rachael's Digital Marketing Blog 