4 Reasons Snapchat Is Losing its Popularity

Snapchat lost popularity some time ago because other social media introduced similar features due to its failed redesign, privacy issues, and other factors. TikTok and Instagram introduced filters and disappearing messages. There were concerns about the app’s data collection practices.

However, Snapchat remains popular among younger people and still has a solid user base. It’s also become a unique social media tool to enable connections between businesses and customers. It supports brief, temporary video and photo sharing. Businesses can advertise on it using geotags, lenses, branded filters, or traditional ads. The concept of Snapchat for business has become widely embraced.

Here are four reasons Snapchat’s popularity waned before it became a household name again.

1. Technical Issues

Snapchat has been plagued by technical problems in the recent past. In January 2022, the platform went down for several hours, and users couldn’t send or receive snaps. A large number deleted the app in frustration.

In 2018, its Android app malfunctioned, which was an issue as fewer than a third of all mobile phone users worldwide had an iPhone at the time.

2. Snapchat’s New Design Failed

2018 was a bad year for the brand. It decided to undergo a redesign, but many users complained the app was harder to use as a result. It was hard for people to find their favorite features and functions and use them. The layout underwent significant changes. All of this drove users away.

3. Instagram Stole Their Stories

Instagram decreased Snapchat’s appeal by stealing and enhancing the Stories feature in 2017. They did so by adding regular posting to Stories, so many users decided they didn’t need to use both apps. They had Stories and regular posts on Insta, after all.

CNBC reported that after Instagram Stories launched, Snapchat’s share price plummeted. Facebook had tried to buy the brand in 2013, but the deal didn’t go through, and it seemed like they were keen on destroying it four years later.

However, Snapchat recovered and regained many fans, mainly because they added recommendations on the Snap Map and other new features.

4. The Pandemic

2020 was another bad year for the app. The pandemic hit, people were confined to their homes, and there were few things to film and photograph, if any. The idea of documenting your day-to-day life became meaningless. Everyone was doing the same thing, just like there’s no point in photographing your Thanksgiving dinner.

Not All Is Gloom and Doom

Snap shares reached a record high of $77 after the company reported its 2021 second-quarter earnings. Despite the round of layoffs at the end of last year, the social media app is still among the most popular worldwide, with hundreds of millions of users. Snapchat is often in the news, and it gets thousands of new downloads.

According to Statista, the app had 363 million active users a day as of the third quarter of 2022, comparable to Twitter in this respect. This is the largest number of active users the app has reported in eight years.