“Snapchat is an extended version of PokémonGo!”

 

Don’t get me wrong, Snapchat has been around a lot longer than most people think, but in the last 2 years it’s hit that epic boost. But here’s the thing; they put themselves in a box… A really tight box.

 

They don’t have much wiggle room with the way that they’ve developed this app. They created the strong niche of only 10 seconds, which does great when capturing an audiences attention. It creates such a sense of urgency to get people to want to look at 10 second clips. The fact that people will spend ten plus minutes of their life looking at Snapchat videos, in 10 second increments, is incredible to me.

 

But because they set themselves in this niche, there’s not much of a ladder to continue to climb. I know they have the filters and all that fun stuff, but their overall specialty revolves around those 10 seconds. So to change that will completely change who they are.

 

Now let’s get into the weeds of things and straight to the point. Instagram has taken some cake from Snapchat. What they’re doing right now is real gangsta like. You can pretty much Snapchat on IG with longer videos, and have some of the exact same features.

 

Now here’s one thing that really sucks about Snapchat, at least for me, is that they make it very difficult to find family and friends to follow. It’s easy to follow celebrities and people with a big audience. But you have to go through another app, or you have to utilize other social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to recruit others to come follow. Huge inconvenience.

 

I look at Snapchat right now as an extended version of PokémonGo. Everyone remember that, right? It was the hottest thing on the planet for a couple months, now it’s declined significantly. Not completely, but there’s no more hype around it.

 

Snapchat is what’s hot at the moment, and what was really hot in 2015/2016. Those were their killer growth years. And they had a lot of success. But I believe that they’ve limited themselves so much, by being way too niche from jump and it’s gonna hurt them in the long run.

 

Nothing is wrong with being very niche, but it depends on the market. One huge mistake I also noticed is that they disassociate themselves with other social media outlets such as: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram… and get ready for this one LinkedIn.

 

Yea I know, I know. You’re like “LinkedIn is for professionals.” Let me explain, buddy. If I were calling the shots at Snapchat here’s the route I would go to expand my company but at the same time keep it niche.

 

I would create different niches within my already niche for specific target audiences. For example, I would have a section in Snapchat that’s strictly for business. Matter fact, call it “SnapBusiness.” There are different categories such as real estate agents, life insurance agents, web designers, and so on.

 

Now each one of these audiences can share their contact with one another within that category. But it’s all still 10 seconds. You even have special features for each one of those categories or businesses. Check this out. For real estate agents they can do a snap and create a filter with their logo, or office address, or top sales agent for the month. You get the point?

 

Now what you’ve done is you’ve created a more broad audience by creating a niche inside a niche.

 

Maybe you can even go to the extent of having it to where there’s categories of what people would like to see. Say for instance people want to watch comedy Snaps, or movie trailer Snaps, or inspirational Snaps. So now a user can select a limited amount of categories that certain Snaps falls under, and when people want to watch snap stories they can go and look at a specific category which would show a certain audience.

 

Did I contradict myself a bit? Yes and no. I still do believe that Snapchat will die, a lot sooner than later, because they’re trying to think out-of-the-box when they need to create a lot more smaller boxes within the box they’re already in.

 

If you start a niche, stay within that niche. But create many niches within, that niche, so it allows you to capture more broad audiences within each individual niche.

 

If you’re reading this, go re-tweet or share this idea with your Snap friends and spill out your thoughts to me.