Introduction

Snapchat is a social media platform that allows users to send messages, take photos (with or without filters), and browse through short videos for entertainment. Users can also follow their favorite celebrities and view their recent updates below the "story" section. Users can interact with each other by commenting on short videos.

Strong design choices

Weak design choices

Market Research

It is important to get a big picture of the market by starting with market research - to get a sense of what we know and don't know yet, who the audience are, as well as what the recent trends or news are. The insights gathered from market research will help me frame provisional personas and ask meaningful questions in primary research.

Competitive analysis

Strengths

Snapchat

  • Video recommendations specifically tailored for the user
  • Multi-purpose platform (features messaging, entertaining videos, a GPS system, and a camera)
  • Features advanced security (notifies user when a person screenshots or screen records their profile, stories, or chats)
  • Large catalog of videos & filters

Instagram

  • Video recommendations specifically tailored for the user.
  • For You page
  • Multi-purpose (messaging, entertainment)
  • Large catalog of videos
  • Easy accessibility of features like messaging, reels, stories, account, search, etc
  • Mobile and web accessibility
  • Doesn't require an account to access videos with a link.

YouTube

  • Voice recommendations specifically tailored for the user‍
  • For You page
  • Large catalog of videos
  • Longer videos (including documentaries) widely available
  • Doesn't require an account to watch videos.
  • Available widely on lots of platforms (phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, televisions like Apple TV)

Discord

  • Public groups for like-minded people
  • Encourages forming communities
  • Large catalog of communities
  • Collaboration with external companies of different genres like Spotify, Twitch, Instagram, YouTube, League of Legends, and ROBLOX.

Weaknesses

  • Offers a premium subscription for exclusive features
  • For You page
  • Ads (unavoidable, no premium option)
  • Lack of customizability
  • Multi-purpose (messaging, entertainment)
  • Offers a premium subscription for exclusive features
  • Advertisements (even for videos that are not monetized)
  • Requires an account to be accessed
  • Encourages forming communities
  • Large catalog of communities

Target audience

In the United States, the most popular age group on Snapchat is those ages 15-25, as they make up 48% of users. Those ages 26-35 make up 30% of users, ages 36-45 are 18%, ages 46-55 are 11%, and those 56 and older make up just 5% of the platform (2023).
Snapchat is currently the 12th most popular social media platform in the world.
Every minute, 2 million snaps (or photos) are sent
Snapchat has over 306 million daily active users. Due to their "snapstreak" feature, which encourages users to send photos to each other daily to build up a high snapstreak.