Snapchat: Rising From Obscurity To Compete With The Giants

Is Snapchat Now Competing with Facebook and The Other Social Media Giants?

No teenager wants to be on the same social networking as their parents right? The view now is that brands have been slow to recognize that Facebook is losing its niche in the social networking market and teenagers are now look for new more inventive ways to socialize with their friends. 

This is where Snapchat comes into play. In an era where the competition for consumers’ attention is so fierce a message that will disappear in a matter of seconds is one that demands their full attention. Neil Major, strategy director at Yomego, says the time-limited nature of Snapchat offers brands an interesting new channel, "You can see how it would work for sneak peaks and teasers for films." 

In regard to young people, they are now displaying ever increasing signs of Facebook fatigue and it is now important for marketers to recognize new platforms such as Snapchat and the shifting consumer behaviors they reveal. "Snapchat reflects how everything is becoming very real time and ephemeral. Part of the allure of the app is the experience of loss when the image disappears, which builds excitement," adds Carat's McCreary.

"The Facebook effect"

Before the days of Facebook peer pressure was in regards to now, very simple. There would be a crowd of  "cool kids" and an uncertain kid who inevitably has a swig of alcohol or a puff on a cigarette. The view is now that people have this idea that their lives are boring when seeing pictures of all their friends having fun drinking etc online, and this is "The Facebook effect". There has even been a very popular book written on this, which you can find here. 
It is thought that Snapchat goes in the opposite way of this peer pressure, as people would usually use it to send ugly 'snaps' of themselves to friends and not worry how they look. Anne McCreary, the digital strategy director at Carat, says that "Facebook puts an enormous pressure on teens to look a certain way, whereas Snapchat is free of the baggage of scrutiny". 

Seeing this constant flow of young people from one social media to another its clear that large companies need to make full advantage of the ever expanding users on Snapchat to market their products, which will get them straight into the pockets of their customers with personalised messages and without the boring monotonous emails they receive so regularly.

Looking at all this its clear to see why Facebook tried to buy Snapchat for £3  billion and also clear why Snapchat rejected the offer, which is very well described in this article - Why Snapchat rejected Facebook