Do you Snap to chat? Or is Facebook bringing it back.

Nearly every generation is represented on social media now. Whether its your Grandma who accidentally comments twice, or your nibling who has just been born and has no idea they already have over 100 likes. At the heart of this digital era are Gen Z, the generation of individuals, and understanding where they are consuming and more importantly, how they are engaging with content is critical to marketers.

Since Snapchat (Snap inc.) launched in 2011, there has been some jostling at the top for the attention of this particular audience. Giving the user the ability to seamlessly communicate through images, both privately and within self-managed communities, was a trump card for Snapchat. The app is brimming with curiosity and creativity.

Snapchat thrives on both the momentum gained amongst younger users, and the ability to innovate in-tune with their user base. Facebook on the other hand, is seen as “less cool” and the platform your parents are on.

Growing up surrounded by technology and social media, in a hyper-connected world has made Gen Z fundamentally different to millennials. As a generation of creators not sharers, they are more attracted to the ephemeral features found in Snapchat.

Snap turned down a $3 billion Facebook acquisition offer in 2013. Facebook have been challenging Snap ever since. In 2016 they launched Instagram stories and added effects in Facebook messenger. The term ‘copycat’ was thrown around, and it seemed that Facebook was taking inspiration from Snapchat but not changing the game. Until now.

At the recent F8 conference, Mark Zuckerberg told Techcrunch:

“The first chapter that made sense was to release products that people were familiar with . . . but the unique thing that we’re going to do is we’re not just going to build basic cameras, we’re going to build the first mainstream augmented reality platform.”

Are Facebook finally innovating for the creators as well as the sharers? In his Facebook post, Mark shares [what we think is] everyone’s ultimate vision for augmented reality: glasses or eventually contact lenses that look and feel normal, and let you overlay all kinds of information and digital content on the real world.

F8 was a chance for Facebook to showcase their next step towards this vision, empowering developers to build AR tools into the first augmented reality platform, the camera.

The new platform incorporates two creative tools — Frame Studio and AR studio.

Frame Studio, similar to Snapchat’s Custom Geofilters enables creators and brands to illustrate contextual framework around their content. Whereas the AR studio is the bread and butter of this announcement, and will eventually allow you to bloom flowers on a plant or add sharks to your breakfast scene.

Facebook have also partnered with GIPHY to enhance broadcasting on Facebook Live, and launched their VR spaces. Facebook are certainly moving quickly to stay ahead of the game and continue to innovate how humans connect and communicate.

But will they capture the elusive Gen Z?
We’ll have to wait and see.