Snapchat ‘Memories’ is here
You can now post old content to your Snapchat Story.
Update from the original blogpost from July 6th: Snapchat Memories is now available!
Snapchat just released a new feature called “Memories”.
This implies a huge change to what the app was so far standing for and the way users and brands make use of the app.
While some say Memories would make Snapchat more addictive, some are annoyed by having difficulties to simply save snaps to their camera roll, and others complain that it would ruin the app’s spontaneity, the new functionality will also likely change how brands use the app.
With Memories, users can save snaps and then edit and resend them to other users or add them to their Snapchat Story.
What’s additionally a huge change is that users can now also upload photos and video that they’ve shot outside of Snapchat and import them from their phone’s camera coll.
You could already send stuff from your camera roll in private snaps, but being able to add them to your stories is new.
However, saved photos and videos that are uploaded as stories or snaps have a timestamp to show when they were originally taken. The only exception is if you add a memory from the last 24 hours to your Story. Then it will fit right in without the border.
What does this change imply?
Before Memories, every image or video you posted to a Story had to be spontaneously shot inside the app. This is, what made Snapchat unique. It was not about creating the most beautiful high-quality content like it is on Instagram, it was raw. Snapchat became home to the weird, imperfect stuff that makes social fun (disappearing content also had something to do with this).
Now that people and brands are able to reach into their camera roll, and create stories from content shot over multiple days, Snapchat will start to host more edited and controlled content. This will absolutely change the feel of the platform.
But this new feature also brings a lot more possibilities and ways to be creative and plan ahead.
Especially for brands this feature will make it more easy and attractive to be on snapchat. You can now plan your content ahead in a better way, and create more structured content .
How to make use of ‘Memories’ in your Content Management
Just off the top of my head, if you’re a food brand and one of your content areas is to share recipes, you won’t need to create those recipes from scratch every day, but you can prepare the content, create a nicely looking “cover image” for your story and share it. If you’re organising events you can create more content there and share post-event content from not-seen-before scenes.
You can engage your users in a better way by sharing ‘user generated content’ — for instance if you ask them to send you snaps as a reply to a competition or engagement campaign etc. you can now save those snaps and then share the best ones via your own stories.
So it means you are more flexible in creating content, not everything needs to be real-time anymore and can plan your content production ahead and better involve your designers or video-producer.
The challenge will be to make content that’s still engaging and feels native to the feed as the aesthetic of the feed shifts.
Users can access Memories by swiping up from the camera section of the app.
Snapchat may get less raw and more polished,
but don’t abuse it.
Currently, one of Snapchat’s great qualities is that its users don’t feel like they — or their snaps — need to look perfect. And they love consuming content from brands and influencers that is not the picture perfect but more “real” content.
Facebook instead is experiencing a decline in original sharing, according to reports, with some arguing that an excess of professional, curated content on the platform is scaring users off from sharing.
As people no longer have to create content in the moment, or even create it at all it might dilute the urgency of Snapchat, where every time you saw a friend or brand had posted something, you knew it was fresh.
In my opinion users and brands will need to experiment with this new feature but be careful with respecting what people want to see and expect seeing on Snapchat and not let it become another polished Instagram or Facebook.
And one thing to keep in mind, it will always be obvious the content is old thanks to the border.
If you want to continue the conversation, find me on Snapchat at “alicekatze” or by focusing your Snapchat camera on my QR Snaptag over here.
Sources:
Snapchat
TechCrunch
The Verge
