It's 2013, and Lorde's "Royals" the season finale of Breaking Bad is playing on your radio. You've probably heard of Snapchat by now. The app for sharing photos created by two Stanford fraternity brothers became widely popular among teens shortly after its release in 2011. However, it was not long before major media outlets have branded it as a "sexting" app.
From the beginning, CEO Evan Spiegel was clear about the purpose of Snapchat. In the company's first blog post, Spiegel states "We're developing a photo application that doesn't conform to unrealistic notions of beauty or perfection, but rather allows you to be honest, funny or whatever else you think of at the time you snap and share the Snap."
The app was created at an era when unflattering and possibly career-ending photos lingered for unknown amounts of time on social media sites like Facebook. The numerical race to find friends was not only exhausting, but also unnatural.
Snapchat's founders wanted to change the way they operate. Spiegel stated that Snapchat's purpose was to make it enjoyable in a 2013 interview with The Associated Press. Period. Spiegel stated that this is the most important aspect.
But, the headlines remained and Snapchat continued to be associated with sexting, particularly, teens sexting. Spiegel didn't deny it. In the same interview with AP Spiegel also talked about the early days Snapchat. He would talk to people with the app that allowed users to send photos that would vanish. Spiegel said their first thought was typically "Oh, for sexting."
"More than Disappearing Nudes"
Today, Snapchat is a multi-billion dollar company that has more than 100 million active users. It is third in popularity among teens after Instagram and Facebook. According to Photoworld, every second 897 photos are uploaded to the app.
The app has developed over the past four years, adding on "live stories" that show user submitted photos and videos from cities and events all over the world. It also launched a discovery tab, and has partnered with some of the same media companies who questioned the app's motives right at the beginning.
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How did they combat negative media perceptions about Snapchat? Simple, they stayed true to their message. In their blog posts, video and print interviews, the founders would always mention the app's ability to allow users to share spontaneous moments and connect with friends, and generally have light-hearted fun. In fact the word "fun" appears in almost every blog post on the app's Tumblr page. With every new feature added the founders further agreed with their goal of creating an "fun" app.
The turning point was when Spiegel turned down Mark Zuckerburg's offer of $3 billion to acquire Snapchat. Shortly before then, Facebook had reported for the first time that it noticed a decline in number of daily users particularly among young teens. Spiegel received a lot of media attention for his bold move and caught the attention of people who had previously disregarding Snapchat as an app that could send naked girls. Why would Zuckerburg consider valuing a sexting app at $3 billion? And, for some strange reason, if Zuckerburg had done, wouldn’t the founders have jumped at an opportunity to sell their company.
Once word spread of Spiegel billion dollar rejection, it was obvious that reducing Snapchat to a teen sexting app was over simplifying this multipurpose platform. Spiegel replied to Forbes when asked why he didn't accept the lucrative offer. Spiegel said that "very few people have the opportunity to build businesses like this." Then he said that "trading it for short-term profit" was not very exciting.
Consistency is the Key
The founders of Snapchat were confident about the potential of their app when they introduced it. They recognized the need to create an ephemeral messaging platform that could bring spontaneity back to social media communication. As a result, it appealed to a group of people tired of constantly editing their privacy settings and worried about the wrong picture being posted on the Internet.
The company is a perfect illustration of how crucial it is to clearly communicate your company's message and remain consistent. Snapchat was designed by the founders in order to be the antithesis of other social media websites that allow users to leave a digital footprint. An app that allows photos to disappear can be beneficial to those who want to share raunchy photos. They weren't aiming at that particular group of people. Instead they were going after the millions of people who would rather draw funny messages on their selfies. The "sexting" idea did create a dark cloud over the company. However, by repeatedly declaring that their motives for the app were focused on users having harmless fun and having fun, they were able finally reach their intended audience and clear up the misconceptions.
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