Snapchat has become one of the most popular, well-rounded applications of this age. While its primary purpose has been to pass around millions of disappearing selfies, Snapchat is slowly implementing unique elements, making it a highly desirable application.
The mobile chat app is the third-most popular media app for Americans 18-34 years old, only behind Facebook and Instagram. Snapchat is highly appealing to social media's most active demographic and with its continual progression in unique features, it is keeping their attention.
A year ago, Snapchat released a feature called Snapchat Stories, which elevated stories to much more than a collection of photos from friends' days.
These days, Snapchat has begun releasing live feed stories of a number of events called "Our Story." It's adding a richness to an otherwise very simple app and giving it an unexpected cultural aspect. Our Story allows users at events such as football games to send in their own snaps and, after being reviewed, have their photos and short videos posted onto the multi-user collective story. Aside from sporting events, Our Story took a step further this summer covering music festivals like Lollapalooza in Chicago. College Game Day on Snapchat has also become a huge hit among students allowing football fanatics — Sun Devils included — to make it onto the universal live feed. The Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas was also covered by Our Story.
The most interesting stream thus far was the recent live stream straight out of India during Diwali. It gave users of a very simple app a peek into a similar demographic across the globe and a taste of what this noteworthy and lesser known holiday is about.
Snapchat is letting users break out of their bubble of friends. It's allowing users to embrace a casual style of journalism and give them the power to share events, people and places as well as witness others' happenings and whereabouts.
As Snapchat is continuing to absorb culture and release these innovative features, it's starting to raise businesses' brows. Recently, the company has announced that infrequent ads will start wriggling their way onto stories. While a large amount of people are devastated at the thought of this in the one app they have avoided advertisements from, Snapchat's CEO, Evan Spiegel, says it's time to make some money; but don't worry, he knows how to keep his users happy.
Rather than forcing ads on users, the plan is to include business promotions into Our Story and make them optional to watch. Giving users a choice is genius. It's not the ads people have problems with, it's the way they are forced upon people. After a few days the ad will disappear of the user's individual story and, whether watched or not, the user will be unaffected and unforced. They will also likely be more willing to take a peek at the ad that sat patiently on his or her story rather than showing up unwanted on his or her screen.
Snapchat is paving the way for even more mass appeal and success. It's opening doors for itself and businesses looking for a unique place to advertise.
Reach the columnist at aerumore@asu.edu or follow her on Twitter @AubreyElleR
Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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