PURPOSE OF SNAPCHAT
It’s a popular mobile app that allows you to send videos and
pictures, both of which you have the choice whether to allow it to
be seen for up to 10 seconds or an unlimited time (made possible
in a more recent update to snapchat). It was created by Evan
Spiegel and Bobby Murphy in September 2011. The purpose of
snapchat is so that you have another platform where you can still
keep contact with your friends and even make new friends. When it
was made it was given the name of “Pictaboo”, this was their
original project when they were at Stanford University. Their peers
didn't’t believe in their idea of the picture disappearing after a
certain amount of time because everyone thought that it wouldn't
work because others thought that it would have been a better idea
to have the image forever. The idea of the photos disappearing was
inspired due to someone sending a photo that they regretted
immediately.
https://www.omnicoreagency.com/
CONTENTS OF SNAPCHAT
Snapchat has a staggering 188 million daily active users. This is done with the amount of
contents that are within the app. One of the most popular features to Snapchat is the filters;
there has recently been an add on to the current use of face filters, this is when you take a
photo you are able to press a smiley face and this will give you the chance to apply a filter (this
only works if your full face is visible on the screen to allow the filter to work). Another use that
Snapchat has introduced their integration with Shazam, it’s not the newest feature on
Snapchat, however it is still not known by a lot of people. By far the most popular feature that
Snapchat has is the ‘Streak’ feature. These can go on for as many days as the two people keep
in contact by making sure that they exchange one snap every 24 hours, if this doesn't’ happen
then this can lead to a timer which can result in the streak ending.
https://beebom.com/snapchat-tricks/
WHAT IS THE TARGET AUDIENCE TO SNAPCHAT ?
Using the website link of Omnicore, I am able to find out the
several different demographics for this app. Firstly, the vast
majority of the users on Snapchat are female. The possible
reason for this could be because of the majority of the filters are
more feminine than others. The use of filters is that you can
change your looks to be more appealing and attractive. Further
to this, looking at the statistics shown on the Omnicore website,
it says that around 70% of the users are people under the age
old 34 years old, this means that the vast majority of the people
that use Snapchat is the younger generation. The socio-
economic status group that would be for snapchat is class E (the
lower income section), this is the section for the students and the
casual workers earning around £6,000 a year. The house style
used for the app are most definitely going towards the younger
people to go with the basic layout. The popular feature of the
stories and now the subscription section where you are able to
reach out to a lot more people all over the world with a bigger
follow count.
https://www.omnicoreagency.com/snapchat-statistics/
SOURCES OF REVENUE
One of the more advanced features added onto the
filters is that there is a chance for some to promote
special occasions etc. the prices can vary, however they
are still extremely absurd prices. They start at £400,000
and the pricing stops at £750,000, this is for an
advertisement on the filter feature. Further to this, the
ads that are put on snapchat have a much more
effective touch on the users of snapchat as they have
much higher ‘swipe-up’ rate than other regular ads.
From the recent statistics shown for Snapchat you can
see that the majority of their users are younger adults
or even in the life cycle of Adolescence. This isn't easy
to achieve the amount of popularity Snapchat has
gained from the younger generation due to the fact
that they have added several mini games with the
application to go with the already extremely popular
filters.
https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/snapchat-marketing-statistics/
LEGAL/ETHICAL ISSUES
Over the years of its release in 2011, this application has taken a lot of mixed opinions on its functions. There are a lot of issues with
Snapchat such as people screenshotting potential explicit pictures and then sending them to others, this can be really dangerous for
the younger users who might feel peer pressured into exchanging these images.
There are certain laws that have been put in place to prevent this from happening. The Data Protection Act, this is more popular in
being used by bigger organizations. Following the principles that have been put in place for this act will mean that all information is
maintained by others. If everyone doesn't follow these rules they could receive fines. Due to it being illegal to send explicit photos
without consent, possession of these certain image is illegal, if found with images of this nature then it can lead to prosecution.
Watermarking, watermarking an image is another way of copyrighting something. This is used so that it will mean that everything is
protected and that others are unable to falsely claim their rights to the creation of the image.
Discrimination: for people to avoid getting into conflict through discrimination people, if they have the access, should use all social
media platforms. The reason for this is because a lot of people online only use these platform to share their extreme opinions about
any subject they choose, this can lead to several offences on others who may see it.
Privacy: on all of the current social media platforms come with much more developed privacy setting due to the reoccurrence of
people being taken advantage of due to the lack of privacy throughout the history of these social media platforms. For example, on
Instagram, snapchat and Facebook you are able to choose who sees your account through the choice of either making it public or
private.
Finally, another really bad use of Snapchat that can be bad for a lot of people is the displaying of drugs and other illegal substances
as it can lead to people thinking that its OK to do this just because they’ve seen someone else do it. An example of this is some
celebrities such Dan Bilzerian, he smokes Cannabis daily and occasionally promotes his drugs on his social media accounts. This is
not fair on a lot of people as you don’t have to be subscribed to these people yet they will still end up on the popular stories where
this content is open to everyone no matter how old you are.
https://techcrunch.com/2013/07/01/new-snapchat-
docs/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer_us=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_cs=dAbJ
hAxhOex2WIspDdzidQ
https://www.simplybusiness.co.uk/knowledge/articles/2010/04/2010-04-23-data-protection-key-responsibilities-for-small-businesses/
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE IF FACEBOOK?
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, created Facebook while studying at Harvard
University. At a younger age he was a very keen computer scientist and developed several
websites for his classmates. He was not alone when he created TheFacebook.com (commonly
known as Facebook) for profiles being made for Harvard students. His application was used all
across the colleges in the United States. In September of 2006 it was then released globally to
any email address. Facebook is the most popular social media platform, Facebook is the
reason to why Instagram and WhatsApp have been given the rights. They get most of their
revenue through advertising on the website, because of this Mark Zuckerberg is one of the
richest in the world with a net worth just short of 60 billion.
FACEBOOK - CONTENTS
Facebook has one of the most simple load outs in
comparison to others such as twitter. They went
with a simple colour scheme with a primary
colours of blue and white. This makes the website
simple but still professional. Due to them not
changing the load out of the website in all the
years that it has been running it has been good
for the people who have been using it for the
longest because they haven’t had the struggle of
trying to get use to something new every update.
Lastly, the notification section of the tab is where
everyone can look to see who has requested to
be their friend and who has messaged them.
THE TARGET AUDIENCE OF FACEBOOK
Looking at Facebook’s target audience, 53% of
their users are female and 47% are male.
However, the different areas that the two
genders prefer to post or focus their account on
are completely different, females prefer to use
their social media to post more personal
information to do with their everyday lives,
whereas males will use their social media to
promote their businesses. There are many
features on Facebook now that have allows it to
flourish in popularity. Since they added in the
chance to post and share videos it has allowed
everyone to get a better following.
https://royal.pingdom.com/study-males-vs-
females-in-social-networks/
ADVERTISING AND REVENUE
Due to their huge amount of users it is easy for them to
use advertisements to make some money from
Facebook which is free. Some of the more popular
types of advertisements that are used for Facebook are
the engagement adverts, as all users are able to engage
with the advert this has lead it to being the more
profitable approach used by businesses as more people
are likely to follow the advertisement and click on it.
Over 95% of social media marketers consider Facebook
the most effective platform for advertising. Everyone
has the ability to run their own personal advertisements
to attract people to their Facebook page. the prices can
vary of which it can cost every click to your page, this
all depends on the size of the organization and the
reach that you demand.
https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/facebook-
advertising-benefits/
LEGAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES
One of Facebooks biggest concerns is the amount of cyberbullying as it happens everyday on all social media platforms. To
try and prevent this they have added the report button, this allows you to report a post and then leave a description, after this
Facebook gives you the chance to tick a box asking what help you want such as “Talk to someone” or “Get tips and support”.
The growth of videos being constantly posted on the website, several companies are occasionally using videos which are
copied from another platform such as YouTube, Instagram and Twitter. Further to this, an example of this is music videos,
these have become one of the most popular complaints for the use of copyright.
Intellectual property is defined as having the correct type ‘intellectual property’ protection in order to prevent others from
stealing or copying your work. This can be applied to the names of certain products or brands. When getting an IP this can
mean that you will be able to get a patent a this prevents anyone from using your information without permission. There is an
IP license that is linked to the user’s account which grants Facebook a Royalty-free, transferable and worldwide license to use
any IP content that the user posts on or in relation with Facebook.
With the use of Libel, this would make sure that Facebook were to make sure that all of a users information presented in the
stories and the content from other pages within the website is accurate and up to date.
https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms/update
https://www.facebook.com/help/399224883474207
INSTAGRAM - PURPOSE
The original name of Instagram was Burbn. The official
purpose of this was to let users earn some points for
checking in at locations. However, people found an
alternative to Instagram which was widely preferred, this
was to share photos. After this was seen as a more
productive way of using this app then it was noticed by the
founders. After this brainstorm of the new idea, they then
made the newer version of the then called Burbn to then
bring it back in October of 2010 known as Instagram.
Within the first 2 years of the new look for Instagram they
had made of a billion dollars. Facebook later purchased the
company for $1 billion in April of 2012.
INSTAGRAM – CONTENT
There have been many demands for this application to implement several things. For example
in 2016 they had released the ability to Livestream, however, they didn't’t release it fully and
was only allowed for those who are verified. This being added on Instagram gave people the
chance to utilize their connections with other to ‘stream’ on the Instagram servers.
INSTAGRAM – TARGET AUDIENCE
Instagram demographics :
• 80% of instagram users come from outside of the US.
• 68% of their users are Female
• 77.6 million users are from the US
• Instagram is used by 31% of the American woman and 24% of men
• 32% of all users on the internet are actively on Instagram
• 59% of internet users between the ages of 18 and 29 uses Instagram and 33% of internet users between the
ages of 30 and 49 use Instagram
• 38% of female internet users use Instagram and 2% of male internet users use Instagram
• 17% of teenagers say Instagram is more important than any other social media platform currently (raised from
12% in 2012)
Looking at this social media application overall, it has a wide reach in ways of users but is mainly
targeted towards the female gender. There are several reasons for this, however the more popular
reason that we have come to conclude is that they are more photogenic and prefer to to take more
‘selfies’ than males.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/most-instagram-users-are-outside-the-us-2016-06-21
INSTAGRAM – SOURCES OF
REVENUE
Similar to Facebook, they make their money through advertising. Instagram has added a new
feature where people are given the chance to pay to have their page promoted in a certain
area and for a period of time. Due to this application being owned by Facebook they are
almost identical in their ways of advertising.
The regular process of Instagram in making their revenue:
1. Instagram serves the adverts that are set up by the advertiser natively on the platform.
2. They will charge the advertiser based on the amount of views it gets in a single day.
3. They will get an advertiser who wants to buy space on Instagram by boosting their post
which could be a picture, video or any other format of post which is available.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/030915/how-instagram-makes-
money.asp
INSTAGRAM – LEGAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES
Looking at Instagram, they have several legal and ethical issues that are there to make sure people follow them so that
certain things are prevented and regulated in a some way.
Intellectual property is defined as having the correct type ‘intellectual property’ protection in order to prevent others
from stealing or copying your work. This can be applied to the names of certain products or brands. When getting an
IP this can mean that you will be able to get a patent a this prevents anyone from using your information without
permission.
Some examples are:
You must be at least 13 years of age.
Certain posts are not prohibited such as violence, nude, partially nude, discriminatory, unlawful, infringing, hateful,
pornographic or sexually suggestive photos or other content via the service.
You are responsible for any activity that occurs through your account and you agree you will not sell, transfer, license or
assign your account, followers, username, or any account rights. With the exception of people or businesses that are
expressly authorized to create accounts on behalf of their employers or clients, Instagram prohibits the creation of and
you agree that you will not create an account for anyone other than yourself. You also represent that all information
you provide or provided to Instagram upon registration and at all other times will be true, accurate, current and
complete and you agree to update your information as necessary to maintain its truth and accuracy.
https://help.instagram.com/478745558852511
SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS -
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
Advantages Disadvantages
Snapchat • Instantaneously connect with users worldwide
• Have a number of filters which enhance the face-to-
face aspect of the application
• Users are able to share media to be visibly seen by
other users publically.
• Number of creative features enabling the user
produce content as they desire.
A recent update has enabled users to be able to see where one is in the
world. Even though you can choose to have this on, real-time tracking is
taking place and people are able to see where you constantly are.
With users choosing how long a message can be viewed for, multiple times
could find that they may miss it.
Facebook • Its reach enables users to keep in touch with those
you otherwise wouldn't see. It also enabled you to
find long lost friends.
• The ability to share with others is quick and easy.
• Facebook is a great way to be used as a journal. You
can update users of what you get up to throughout
your life.
• Facebook is full of fake profiles, meaning catfishing is very high. Profiles
can be created by almost anyone. Many people fall to this and believe
ones profile is real when it maybe isn’t.
• Facebook has many features which provides entertainment for users on
the service. Facebook is said to be a very time-consuming social media
platform. Why so many people deactivate their accounts.
Instagram • Seamless convergence with Facebook, you can easily
share an image from one service to the other.
• Privacy settings allows the user to have control who
sees their media.
• Instagram provides a variety of filters which enhances
images. This means users do not need a separate app
for editing their media.
• Have introduced stories which has been critically acclaimed on
Snapchat before. People consider this update to be an rip-off/older
demo to Snapchat’s service.
• Instagram is a service designed for mobile devices. It has very limited
functionality on desktop computers.
• You need to consistently upload content otherwise your audience wont
interact with you.
SOCIAL EFFECTS –
NOAM CHOMSKY
This is relating to something that a lot of people
have looked into of how social media changes
certain peoples attitudes when they are in public
whereas they will be a different person over the
internet with other people. Further to this, this can
go to the point where people feel that there is a
barrier so large that they have the power and
capability to be one to exchange hurtful
comments with others which can lead to bullying
and many psychological problems for younger
users such as depression.
For me, I believe that social media has ruined the
way people are meant to coordinate with others
and it has given people a place to be cruel to
others which is not good for society.
PRIMARY RESEARCH
For my primary research I will be asking questions and receiving answer
from a selected audience. The purpose of this survey is to get a rough idea
of the social effects of social media. I will be linking this to the social
effects by Noam Chomsky “erodes normal social behavior”.
SOCIAL EFFECTS SURVEY FEEDBACK
The mode age for the people who had answered my questions is under 18.
whereas, for gender I had 12 females and 9 males. I asked these questions
as they go together very well when finding out demographics.
SOCIAL EFFECTS SURVEY FEEDBACK
Looking at my answers for these questions, it was reasonably spread out but
Instagram was the most popular social media. When I asked people why
their choice was their favorite most of the answers were based on
communication with their friends and how easy this platform was to use.
SOCIAL EFFECTS SURVEY FEEDBACK
For my final question I asked “What do you think is the danger of your chosen social media?”. This
gave people the chance to share their opinion on the severe possible dangers of social media that
are still happening everyday and are gradually increasing. The most popular response was social
media pressures; I believe that the reason I had this for my most popular answer is due to the
choice of Instagram being the more favored social media, this is because as a whole it can be very
pressuring for people when they are posting a picture as they will overthink peoples opinions on
the photo which will lead to thoughts which could lead to depression and high levels of stress.
SECONDARY RESEARCH
For this research I will be gathering information that will be about the
social medias I have researched prior to this. Hopefully it will go with my
primary research.
SNAPCHAT REVIEW
Looking at the reviews placed on this
slide, you can easily see that this
application is very popular and
successful with the majority of their
users. This is due to their easy access
and the fact that it is very easy and
simple when it comes to going
through the app. Further to this, a lot
of the reviews were based on
advertising businesses and their
events as they are able to use
snapchat to create their own
personal lens where people in a
certain area will be able to see that
there is a local event near them.
INSTAGRAM APP STORE REVIEW
For Instagram their reviews were very one
sided as a lot of people were complaining
about the high level of advertisements on the
application which has grown to be quite
annoying for some. Further to this, another
serious and popular problem with Instagram
is the fact that they are getting hacked and
Instagram isn't doing anything about it which
is leading to people saying their customer
service is very weak and the level of security
there is on the app is terrible.
FACEBOOK REVIEW
Looking over the reviews of Facebook I can see several positives and negatives to using this social media
platform. Firstly, over the years there have been more than incident where their users private information of just
things on their account that they didn’t want public were then stolen from unidentified people; this has lead to
a lot of legal action with Marc Zuckerberg costing him an unimaginable amount of money. On other hand,
looking at the positive reviews, besides their problems with their users safety they run a solid website/app with
a very good layout and also a lot of things to do.
TECHNOLOGICAL CONVERGENCE
LADbible is a great example of synergy across social media. They are one of the most
popular accounts on Instagram for the service that they provide which is based on videos
that can be funny etc., they also post ‘memes’ which are funny but also sometimes
mocking videos on current trends and news and they also post interest stories which gives
some people a chance to speak out on what they have done whether it is fun and happy
or it is them overcoming a massive hurdle in their life. Even though they are both on
Instagram and Facebook the content they post on either platform differs massively. The
reason for this is because of the different audiences that are on the two social media
platforms. For example Instagram has a much younger audience so the account on
Instagram is mostly videos of comedy rather than serious and potentially upsetting.
VIRAL MARKETING
This is a marketing technique which makes users who come across the ad or message
to share what they have seen. In doing this, it will mean that the advert or message
will be quickly shared on a viral scale as there would be a domino effect continuously
due to people sharing it with their own users. On Instagram this can happen very
easily as there are several accounts with millions of followers and this will make it a lot
easier for something spread and go viral due to the amount of people that will be
able to see through the amount of people reposting it and sharing it. An example of
this is “The_world_record_egg”, this was first seen around the time late 2018 where an
account known as “Worldstar” first shared this in order or to steal the thrown from
Kylie Jenner which had the most liked post of over 18 million likes; currently the
account of the world record egg has millions of followers with their original post
slowly reaching the 60 million mark.
ADVERTISING
There aren’t as many ways to advertise on snapchat.
However, the most popular ways to advertise on the app
is through geo-filters, video content to augmented reality
posts. The price of doing this can range from around £10
to over £400k. With reaching around 200 million users on
daily basis that are spending around 30 minutes each day
using their app makes advertisements extremely
successful. Looking at the image with the red outline is an
example of their new technique in advertising on
Snapchat which is within the discover section if you are
going through this part of snapchat you will eventually
get an advert of around 5 seconds that cant be skipped
unless you leave the app itself. This makes it a lot easier
for the companies that are having their product
advertised because they are making people look at what
they are trying to sell and within the video they will give
details that will help.
https://www.marketingweek.com/2018/06
/05/snapchat-fad-goldmine/
ADVERTISING
This social media platform is one of the popular choice
when it comes to advertising. The reason for this being
the most successful online advertising technique is all
due to it huge amount of daily users which is by far the
biggest across all social media platforms with over a
billion daily users. Looking over all of the other ways
to advertise across the other platforms such as
Snapchat, the price can go up to unbelievable costs of
nearly £500,000. However, on Facebook you can pay
less than £5 and you will be able to reach 1,000 users
with this. An example of how successful Facebook
advertising can be is that a company had paid £500 to
have their product advertised on the website had then
generated over £1500 back after the their advertising
slot had come to an end.
https://www.lyfemarketing.com
/blog/facebook-advertising-
benefits/
ADVERTISING
With this apps wide range of users, getting
millions of people across the globe using this
on a daily basis, this makes this one of the best
and most effective places to advertise any
product on. With how far Instagram has been
developed, people with a larger following are
now sponsoring companies in short videos
where they will have the companies “@” either
tagged within the video or in the description
below. This is one of the most effective ways to
advertise on this app because it is a much easier
process instead of having to go and search
them up, they only have to press the links given.