According to statistics released by Since Snapchat is used for sharing photos and videos, it can be useful for businesses attempting to promote their products and services. Content creators produce Snapchat stories to engage and excite audiences. These stories, which remain visible for only 24 hours, are composed of a strong of Snaps used to create a video narrative. They can be saved if the viewer takes a screenshot of the photo or video, but, for the most part, Snaps disappear after 24 hours.
Forest Selby, a realtor in Northern Virginia and owner of the Firehill Group, is a huge fan of various social media platforms to promote his business. However, he doesn’t use Twitter often because he feels tweets get lost in the cacophony of tweets. He does like LinkedIn, although after sampling its premium membership trial, he decided the free version served his professional needs just as well.
Meanwhile, Selby says he has a love-hate relationship with Snapchat. So much so that he posted an article about it online and created a YouTube video expressing his thoughts. According to Selby, whose presentation about Snapchat is entitled “5 Reasons It Sucks for Business and 5 Reasons It’s Great,” opines reasons Snapchat is bad for business. They include:
- Creating an appropriate Snap story usurps a lot of time
- Misuse of the platform by people who don’t understand how to put Snapchat to use
- A user’s ability to ‘tap through,’ or skip parts of a story
- Abuse of filters
- It takes a lot of time to view Snap stories, so viewers can be turned off
Another reason Selby says he doesn’t like to use Snapchat to promote his real estate business and the properties he is selling is because the platform offers no way to measure anything. Snapchat, he says, “is not a good ROI because you have no idea” if people are watching or being influenced by a particular Snap story. Viewers must also invest time to watch the stories, and with time being such a precious commodity, he worries his Snap stories aren’t worth the effort.
Still, he says Snapchat does have its positives. For one, “It’s fun,” says Selby, a gregarious professional who doesn’t take himself too seriously. Another bonus of Snapchat is that it is not as widely used as other platforms, meaning competition for attention isn’t as fierce as it is say, on Twitter.
But what does Selby like most about Snapchat? Meeting people. He says the platform has allowed him to meet people he wouldn’t have otherwise, some of whom he has actually met in person. Some Snappers, as he calls them, have introduced him to other Snappers in other nations, and they have become virtual friends. In Selby’s view, “That’s awesome!”
Tami Kamin Meyer is an Ohio attorney and writer who tweets as @girlwithapen.
