A recent survey shows that Snapchat is the most popular social media platform among teenagers – a group considered to be a key demographic to all in the industry.
The study was conducted by asset management firm Piper Jaffray, and sampled 6,100 teenagers from 44 different US states. The demographics of the teens were split 54% male to 46% female, and the average age of the sample was 16. The findings of the survey show that the disappearing photo-messaging app came out on top against stiff opposition, including Facebook and Instagram.
Nearly half of participants (47%) said that Snapchat was their favoured social networking site, with this figure blowing its competitors out of the water. The second most popular platform among teenagers was Instagram, with just under a quarter of teens (24%) stating this to be their preferred platform.
The largest social media site of them all, Facebook, polled in third place, way off the pace of Snapchat and Instagram, with just 9% of teens giving the site a vote of confidence. Micro-blogging site Twitter came in fourth place, marginally behind Facebook with 7%, and Pinterest trailed behind, with just 1% of teens stating this platform to be their favourite.
Furthermore, teen interest in Snapchat is not stagnant just yet, but continues to grow, which is a big boost for the company. Since 2015, the app has grown from being the preferred app of just 11% of teenagers, to being the favourite platform of almost half.
Its market share has come from Twitter, although both Instagram and Facebook have also lost ground to the company in recent times. In the same timeframe, Piper Jaffray calculates that it has won over the most teens in comparison to its rivals.
This is perhaps one of the reasons why Instagram, and its parent company Facebook, have resorted to aping a number of Snapchat’s more popular features and functions, including facial filters and Stories. Despite this, Piper Jaffray says that these efforts have not had a huge impact on Snapchat’s user engagement statistics.
Snapchat, however, certainly doesn’t have a monopoly on teenagers. The study found that over 90% of Snapchat users also use Instagram. Even though the engagement levels are high on Snapchat, the moves Instagram has made to overhaul it by mimicking certain features have now brought its engagement levels in line with those of Snapchat.
In terms of advertisement, Piper Jaffray highlighted that around 60% of surveyed teens said that Instagram was the best platform to reach them on for advertising. Email placed second, with Snapchat came third, with 45% of respondents saying it was the most effective for ads aimed at them.
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Great piece Alan!
Do you think Snapchat will be overtaken by Instagram in near future when it comes to teens?
Kind regards,
Filip