The Power of Disappearing Communication
If you want your message to grab attention, maybe you should make it disappear.
Snapchat has had a lot of press since launch. Some good, some not so good — though the majority of negative talk has come around the perception Snapchat is only used by teenagers to send naked images to each other.
The fact is 150 million images are sent by Snapchat users each day. 150 million.That’s a number too big to dismiss or ignore.
This way of communicating — disappearing images — has taken off, and it demands attention.
When you receive a ‘Snap’ you know it will disappear in a matter of seconds; therefore, for the time the image or video occupies your screen it gets your full attention. That’s powerful.
When was the last time you gave any platform your full, undivided attention?
With most forms of communication and content it’s easy to ignore, or say to yourself; “I’ll check it later.”
How many times do you see an article you want to read — favourite it on Twitter, add it to Evernote (or wherever you like to save links for later) — and then never go back to check it? I know it happens to me a lot.
Snapchat takes this option away from us. It makes us pay attention.
Step in Gary Vee
Gary Vaynerchuk has been doing a lot of experimenting with the Snapchat platform recently.
Tonight, Vaynerchuk sent out a message challenging his Snapchat contacts to screenshot the image and post it to Twitter alongside the hashtag #GaryVeeFREE; one person who tweeted the images/hashtag combination would receive some iTunes vouchers. Simple.
In around 30 minutes #GaryVeeFREE had made around 1 million impressions on Twitter.
That’s impressive.
Snapchat may be seen as a ‘fad’ by many, but remember when Facebook, Twitter and social media at large was described as ‘just a fad’.
This way of communicating is new, it has some evolving to do, but it provides huge opportunities to those willing enough to experiment and test the waters.
What do you think of Snapchat and the concept of disappearing communication? Tweet me your thoughts.
P.S. Gary Vaynerchuk has written some good piece on his experimenting with Snapchat so far; here and here.
About Me
I’m a freelance social media strategist, community manager and wannabe writer. Find out more about me here.
