These days, many conversations are being hosted through apps like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and most especially Snapchat. Snapchat is being used by more than 150 million people of all ages every day. A few years ago, it was popular for its private sharing of self-destructing photos. Today, it’s a major social media platform with stories to share, filters apply, and daily updates of entertainment and news. While it may be intimidating for new users, with a little time you can become an expert and navigate conversations with your loved ones on it.
Getting Started
The great thing about Snapchat is that it’s easy to get started. By swiping down on your profile screen, you can add everyone already on the app from your contacts and upload your own profile picture. Once you have added them, you can take your first few pictures at the home screen. You have up to ten seconds for the picture to last, and options to add colorful paint,
text, geo-stickers, and funny edits like face swaps and dog ears to make things more entertaining. If you’re taking a video, hold down on the record button for up to ten seconds. Once you’ve captured your shot, you can speed up your video, slow it down, or even reverse it for a funny effect. After you’ve put your finishing touches, select which contacts you want to receive your picture or video and watch the conversation begin. You can also choose to add your piece to your “story”, which is like a status that all your contacts can view for up to a day.
Snap Chat also features a more traditional type of chat, by hitting the name of one of your contacts. From there, a chat box will open where you can instantly message and save what you send and receive. You can even send images from your camera roll and save what images or videos your contact sends to you.
Diving Deeper
If you want to view more news and entertainment, Snapchat offers a “Discover” option with articles, videos, and gifs posted daily from partners like Buzzfeed, MTV, Cosmopolitan, Sky Sports, Mashable, and even National Geographic. Each publication has their own story to view, with bite size articles about a variety of topics.
Once you’ve been on the app for a while, you’ll notice that there’s scores and emoji’s next to your friends’ names. It’s good to learn the meanings of these, as they point to how your relationship via Snapchat is going thus far. For example, a fire emoji means a “snap streak” of talking a consecutive number of days, a yellow heart represents being each others most contacted friend, and a smile emoji means being frequently contacted friends. The number that seems to increase by each person’s profile is their “snap score”, which is described as an equation of the collective number of snaps sent, received, and stories posted.
Snap Away
Like any messaging app, Snapchat makes it easier for you to communicate with your friends and family with funny pictures, videos, and filters throughout the day. There’s no sign of it stopping, as people can be seen everywhere who stop at the corner of a street, middle of an event, or even a conversation to pull out their phone and hit record. With enough practice using it, you too can become a snap mogul and wow your peers with your own entertaining posts!