Things You're Doing Wrong on Snapchat

Snapchat is huge with millennials, Mic spoke to a group of Snapchat powers users about the unofficial "official" code of conduct.

1. Don't over-snap

We've all seen the person who goes to a show and snaps 87 videos of the band on stage. We get it, you went to a concert.

"If you're at a cool location, just snap one or two pics," Rafael Singer, a 14-year-old from Los Angeles, said. "We just want to see where you are and the cool location you're at. Once you give a general idea of the place you're at, that's enough. You don't need to post your whole album on Snap; that's spammy."

It's also a lot for someone to tap through. "People don't really want to tap through too much stuff," said Michael Sheldon, a 16-year-old in Arlington, Virginia.

"Stories are cool and people enjoy them to see a few five-second glimpses of what people are doing, but they don't want to see a five-minute-long thing," Sheldon explained.

2. Don't DM your friends snaps that appear in your story

Speaking of stories, if you follow someone on Snapchat, chances are you're going to view their story. One of the cruelest things you can do to a person is to direct-snap duplicate content from your story to their inbox.

It would be like if every time I posted an Instagram, I direct-messaged my post to all my friends and said, "Did you see this?" They saw it.

It would be like if every time I posted an Instagram, I direct-messaged my post to all my friends and said, "Did you see this?" They saw it.

"Everyone already got the memo!" said Singer. "It's annoying to see it twice."

Peter Santa Ana, an 18-year-old in Honolulu, agreed. "When you do that, it's like, why did you even send that to me? I saw it."

3. Tailor your direct snap to the person you're sending it to

When you do send direct snaps, think about the person you're sending it to. Avoid blasting out the same pic to all of your friends.

Direct snaps are meant to be a personal message, one-to-one, and so the implication is that you're sending the photo to just that person.

"Don't send people snaps that seem like one-to-one when you've actually sent it to so many other people," said Kelly Bell, a 15-year-old in San Diego.

"It's annoying because you think you're friends with someone and have a close relationship with them, because, like, hey, they direct-message you. But really, they're just bored and send that to 40 other people. It makes you feel awkward."


Check out more advice so you can up your snap game here.  


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