Snapchat Just Changed The Game

Snapchat is a big deal, and you’ve probably read all of the articles just as I have on why millennials and younger generations are loving it more than your mom’s Facebook or your funny friend’s Twitter.

While the ability to tell hundreds of friends every detail of our lives through status updates has been fun, but it has also had some unintended consequences, such as that one time your friend posted those unflattering pictures of you in a situation that you didn’t want others to know about – the presence of your parents, teachers and future employers has made it less than desirable.

Enter Snapchat!

Currently the most attractive capability of Snapchat is that it lets you broadcast your life to only people that you care about, this is usually way less than the 500 friends you have on Facebook. Interesting stats according to Snap Inc. (IPO filing data) on an average Snapchat user:

• opens the app 18 times a day
• spends about 30 minutes in it
• sends about 16 snaps
• he / she is between 18 and 24 years’ old
• generates $1.05 in ad revenue ever three months

But of course those metrics look great but Snapchat will continue to innovate in order to grow their revenues and make their shareholders happy campers. Enter Snap Map, which is the newest feature released last week – which enables users to bring up a map, enabled by ‘pinching’ when the camera is evoked. I got my first taste of the new feature and experience this past weekend and was a little confused in the value attributed to it, and why anyone would even care. However, after spending some time in the maps feature, I realized that you could move around in the map to any geographical area and to my delight the map had a ‘heat map’ layered on it, which indicated the amount of snap story activities in that particular area – essentially you could see snap stories from anywhere in the world!

This morning before getting out of bed, I watched some people on vacation in Paris, France visiting the Eifel Tower, and even saw some guys doing Extreme Diving (didn't even know this was a thing) in Norway. To say the least, just this feature alone has blown me away and that is why they have changed the game. It’s simply amazing. Say good bye to your typical ‘newsfeed’ via Facebook and keep an eye on who this evolves in the next few months.

Just imagine for a second, how this could develop and bring you closer to others around the world or even help you grow your business. Who knows, there could even be a financial services application here from a marketing perspective to help create deeper brand awareness, and help drive community engagement etc.

In closing, the Snap Map feature is very awesome, if you haven’t used it yet, check it out and explore the world from the comfort of your smartphone device. 

Thanks for reading!