Why Snapchat Has Become Least Effective for Journalists
“Snapchat lets you easily talk with friends, view live stories from around the world, and explore news in Discover.” Snapchat is a great app for viewers to see more ‘behind the scenes’ details of what is going on in people’s lives in real time. Journalist are able to connect with their friends and the community on a more personal level. However, I do not believe that this is the most effective way for journalists to report their stories. “Some people argue that using Snapchat may be more difficult because it tells a linear story.” The article elaborates on how Snapchat uses the ‘storyboard method’ to tell stories just like on television.
Snapchat implemented the ‘Discover’ feature which was believed to be a possible could contribute to the evolution of mobile news. This feature allows different news outlets to post content every 24 hours, with hopes of reaching a younger audience who doesn’t typically keep up with traditional news.
Although this tool seems like a great marketing deploy, I don’t see it being effective in a couple of years to help keep Snapchat relevant and popular. After having conversations with some of peers we have come to the conclusion that we as a collective, don’t often use the Discover page. Which leads me to wonder how many other people within our age group actually use the page for news or in general. Majority of our generation has had our Snapchat accounts for years, which means that we most likely remember the early stages of the app. The fun thing about the app is to be able to interact with our friends and too keep up with their lives in real time. My point is that it is suppose to be fun and exciting, people don’t tend to look for news on this type of platform. This is a disadvantage for journalists because although the goal is to integrate the two; this just isn’t the best way to grasp the younger audience’s attention in my experience.
Audience members need to be engaged and they want a reason to why they should care about the journalists’ story. Snapchat is good for showing behind the scenes or an inside look of a journalists’ life but not much more than that. Newer apps, such as TikTok, is rising in popularity and it is a new way that journalists can tell stories. These new innovations seem to be putting Snapchat on the back burner.
Expert journalist Marianna Brady explained that, “it’s creating new opportunities, but it’s not fixing the problem that we have.” Brady believes that journalists should take advantage of Snapchat to find new stories and connect with others but it needs to be used to evolve. She also says to embark on new resources which would suggest to explore and expand the individual’s knowledge of other social media platforms.
