There’s a lot of interest surrounding Snapchat at the moment in digital marketing. Bloomberg recently reported that the app now has over 150 million daily active users, 40 million more than Snapchat reported to potential investors in December 2015. They have achieved this within the space of four years, a phenomenal feat considering Facebook, the social media platform with the most monthly and daily active users, took five years to reach the same figure.
Snapchat, therefore, has more daily active users than Twitter, if reports that the microblogging site presently has about 136 million are correct. Despite Twitter keeping daily active user numbers under wraps, Bloomberg pointed out that Twitter has previously revealed that roughly 44% of their 310 million monthly active users visit the site on a daily basis, i.e. 136 million.
If those figures are accurate, Snapchat could be situated within the top three of the most used social media platforms in the world. However, some take into account monthly active users rather than daily active users and vice versa, which makes drawing comparisons between various sites difficult. SocialMediaToday has generated estimated daily active user figures for the top six social media platforms by halving the number of monthly active users, which ranks Snapchat third behind Facebook and Instagram, and Twitter fourth.
Although Snapchat’s user interface is arguably harder to navigate than other social media apps’, its growing popularity has not been impacted as a result. Twitter have attempted to simplify theirs to attract and retain new users, for example, by adding in the ‘Moments’ feature to improve tweet accessibility. Although there are no news feeds, search functions or timelines on Snapchat, the number of people joining and using the app hasn’t waned. People who want to use it enough tend to overcome any initial issues they may encounter.
Digital marketers are trying to capitalise on the enormous popularity Snapchat is currently experiencing. Although some businesses and brands will struggle to create a strong presence on the social media platform, if Snapchat can continue to remain relevant to its audience as they age, using it for marketing will eventually become essential.
