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Student comments on Snapchat at School

  1. Interesting post! Totally agree that they’ve capitalized on a new way to communicate both directly and more broadly via direct snaps and stories which is more engaging than traditional text and also provides visual insight into what a person is doing. I think Snapchat’s big advantage over other social platforms in the future will be its advertising offering (which you’ve alluded to) and the way it can capitalize on indirect network effects. It currently offers full video advertising to a very targeted millennial demographic. While Facebook can target as well, I think Snapchat’s offerings will also be more engaging given the way in which Snapchat content is shared (brief and in-the-moment) — users may be more willing to see out the ad to make sure they didn’t miss something interesting or funny which they might enjoy, compared to Facebook or Instagram, where the user can simply scroll past any ads they see.

  2. I’m really interested to see how this one plays out. The current $10-20B valuation is completely hinging on the user base being a big draw for ad purchasers, and (as you mentioned) how “captive” these ad views area. However, the current giants of this market (FB and Google) offer advertisers something a little different: highly targeted ads based on the users shared data. I’m really interested to see if Snapchat can get the same level of targeting in their value offering. If they can, maybe MIT grads will soon be debating whether to ride on a bus to Mountain View everyday or live by the beach in LA….

  3. Thanks for the post! I’m curious how sticky Snapchat is after students leave school and move into the workplace, which is also when they have a steady income and greater buying power. I had seen an article about Facebook having lower penetration in younger demographics (e.g. high school students) but that they were not concerned about it. I imagine that graduates may start to move towards Facebook, which may be an easier way to stay in touch with people who are in far flung places. On Facebook the grads can choose to engage with their network more sporadically but also deeply through looking through new photos/their timeline updates since the last time they crossed them on the platform. As the students’s networks grow larger, it may just be difficult to keep up with tons and tons of snaps every day.

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