Snapchat’s looking to expand its use case into public group chats, with the addition of new “Topic Chats,” which will enable users to join public discussions of popular topics, and could help to drive more engagement in the app.
As explained by Snapchat:
“Snapchatters create billions of Snaps every day, sharing moments with friends and family, and as we’ve expanded services like Spotlight, we’ve also found that the Snapchat community loves commenting publicly about trending topics and events. This is new for Snapchat, because we’ve primarily focused on supporting private conversations rather than public ones. Watching our community engage with one another in public comments inspired us to invent a new way to have these conversations. Meet Topic Chats — a new type of Chat built for the moments everyone’s talking about.”
Snapchat’s Topic Chats will enable anyone to engage in a broader discussion about trending news stories and events, and will also include related Snaps within the discussion element to add more context and color.
“You’ll be able to see if your friends are in the Topic Chats so you can discover common interests, and we’ll bring chats you join to the top of your Topic Chat page.”
Snapchat says that Topic Chats will be made available to users in Canada, New Zealand, and the U.S. “over the coming weeks.”
“[Users] will begin to see Topic Chats appear across Snapchat – in Chat shortcuts, in search, in the Stories page, and on Spotlight videos. If you see a big yellow button on a Story or Spotlight that says ‘Join the Chat’ just tap to jump into the conversation and explore related Spotlight videos.”
It could be a good way to encourage more connection and interaction in the app, expanding Snap’s use case beyond just messaging friends, and more towards traditional social media engagement.
Though that could also lead to more unwanted exposure and harm, which is why Snap says that it will also be moderating Topic Chats to ensure that they remain safe and appropriate.
Though manual moderation (presuming that’s the case) will also limit Snap’s capacity to scale these discussions, and it could open up a whole lot more headaches for the app, if it does end up catching on.
But conceptually, providing a space for Snap’s young user base to connect with like-minded and like-interested users could be a benefit, and could give Snap more opportunities to build its use case and value.
While also, potentially, offering new opportunities for ad partners. Topic-based engagement also means a new element to reach interested users, and Snap also likely sees this as another way to gather data, and show relevant ads to this audience.
It’s worth a shot, especially given that Snap’s user growth has stalled in its key markets.
Maybe this is a way to reinvigorate broader interest in the app.
