The Reasons I Finally Joined (And Enjoy) Snapchat

I don't know about you, but I'm big into social media, but have been wary about Snapchat until now. Why, you ask? Because of course, at first, you hear the negative connotations associated with it, you don't understand the point, you have zero friends when you first join and you don't understand why your much younger sibling/nieces/nephews/cousins are in the know and YOU are not... let alone how a business could be on this! 

Why did I join snapchat? 

1. My much younger, cooler brother has been on it for a long time
2. I kept hearing about how it's the fastest-growing social network and I needed to know more
3. Many of my friends made the switch / addition and I was curious
4. There's a few colleagues of mine who've continued to inquire about how companies can create an account and if there's any best practices 
5. I feel like since my career does involve digital & ecommerce & social, it was time... 

Why do I actually like snapchat now? 

1. It's a much 'realer' social channel than say instagram (heavily-staged) or facebook (flooded by engagements, weddings, babies, monumental moments... politics) 
2. It's such a quick visualization tool, where you can send your friends photos while you're out, without having to waste the space on your texts or photo albums (photos speak 1,000 words)
3. It's a fun way to stay in touch with friends, via videos of their day, funny photos, filters, especially now that I have a decent amount of friends living afar 
4. It's actually a VERY creative app and fun to see how friends use it 

How do I see businesses using it? 

1. Providing access to unique, live events
2. Contests or perks for those who share your product via snaps
3. Snapchat takeovers 
4. Share daily behind-the-scenes at work

What are your thoughts on snapchat? I like to see businesses who do it well, but I'll be honestly, I only currently follow friends and then discover businesses whose major brand is on there, doing a killer job. 

The Year of The Visual

I've begun to notice a shift... a big one too. Long gone are the days of images being upload to Facebook, and hours upon hours spent only on Facebook to find anything and everything. The younger generation has left Facebook in the dust, and fast.

It's a great thing they acquired Instagram, otherwise they'd be in real trouble. The younger generation usually seems to become enamored with a new app/social media channel quickly, then all of a sudden you hear it's the new "place to be".

I'm not sure if Facebook's focus on imagery wasn't enough, or if we've all become so overloaded by information and status updates that we want to get back to the time where a picture was worth 1,000 words! Between Pinterest, Instagram and Snapchat, if you're not collecting inspiring visuals and focusing on image-heavy content... you're doing it wrong.

Eventually, there will be another new and hipper channel (videos? wearables?) but for now, images rule the web.. and for good reason too!