Snapchat
Snapchat (███)
Snapchat is a messenger service for sharing photos and short (up to 10-second)
videos. You either can send messages to individual contacts, or post
them so that they can be viewed by anyone who follows you in the app.
These “stories” exist for 24 hours. Media can also be screenshot into perpetuity.
Snapchat has recently introduced a Map feature, which allows users to see stories by geographical location. This gives newsrooms and journalists unprecedented access to accurately geotagged images and videos, which can be used to cover location-driven stories like natural disasters (including Hurricane Harvey).
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Good for short news updates | No editing, except for through filters |
| Used widely by young audiences | Difficult to “discover” users within the app, so it's important to promote your content and Snapchat handle outside the app |
| Discoverability increases with location-driven posts, which are then posted on Snapchat's Map. | No web interface |
| No way to track metrics |
Pro tip: Turn on the power-save option. For information on this and other “secret settings,” see “7 Snapchat tips and tricks you probably had no clue about.”
Audience
Snapchat users tend to be younger than those of any of the other major
social platforms. 70% of users are female, and 71% are under 25 years
old. Two fifths of all 18-year-olds in the U.S. use Snapchat multiple
times a day.
Metrics
Snapchat metrics are very limited, and there aren’t any outside apps for
tracking metrics. For individual stories, you can see how many people
who opened a story after it was delivered, how many took a screenshot,
and how many responded to you with a chat or snap. Tracking metrics
would mean doing it yourself (i.e. calculating “screenshot rate” over time).
Privacy
For the most part, you can control who views your stories on Snapchat when you're in the "Stories" tab: "groups" (i.e. for your friends), "geo" (i.e. for people in the same location or nearby), and "private" (i.e. for a selected group of friends, as opposed to all friends). This allows users granular control over different stories, depending on the audience, allowing you to easily create private and professional stories.
However, if a user uses the "main" Snapchat camera view, the granular controls are replaced by the default that exist in the "Who can..." section of _Settings. _There are two relevant options here: "who can see my location" and "who can view my story". Depending on the what you are publishing more frequently, you might want to change the existing defaults. Or, always you the "Story" view.
Security
Supports Two-Factor Authentication: Yes
Go to Settings, and then click on "Login Verification". Here, there are three options to get the "second factor": an Authenticator application/code-generator application, text verification, and using recovery codes.
Case studies
Newsroom
During the Rio 2016 Olympics, Buzzfeed in collaboration with NBC had a team of 12 producers powering a Snapchat channel, producing at least 14 pieces of content a day. (A little extra: Why Journalists Can No Longer Ignore Snapchat).
Fusion publishes short news-updates called “News in a Snap” and other content in multiple languages exclusively for Snapchat. To view their stories, add “thisisfusion” to your Snapchat friend list. (Don’t confuse “Stories” with the “Discover” feature, which is limited to official publishing partners.)
Classroom
Students in Anthony Adornato's "Mobile and Social Media Journalism" course at Ithaca College's Park School of Communications are required to produce Snapchat news stories as a regular part of the curriculum. Students of the school also took over NBC's Snapchat channel for a day to cover the South Carolina GOP presidential primary.
Additional resources
Tutorial\/help: Up and Running with
Snapchat,
Snapchat tips and
tricks,
Beginner's guide to
Snapchat