Tech: Snap's new features could drive user engagement (SNAP)

Snap released a slew of new features in its latest bid to help keep users engaged

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Snap released a slew of new features in its latest bid to help keep users engaged, TechCrunch reports.

The features are rolling out globally on iOS and Android. Here’s a rundown and why they’re important:

• Paperclip lets users attach links to their snaps. Users swipe up on linked snaps and are directed to a site in Snap’s internal browser. Previously, only ads and content in the discover page could include links. The feature could help with user engagement — it provides an additional way for users to interact, and may keep users within the Snap ecosystem for longer periods of time. The feature also brings potential monetization opportunities for publishers, brands, and influencers, who could use this feature to drive traffic to their websites.
• Backdrops allows users to place creative backgrounds behind selected objects in a snap, while voice filters let users modify their voices (previously users could do so only when used with a camera filter). Backdrops and voice filters present potential monetization opportunities for Snap — it could start charging brands and users that want to create their own, similar to its geofilter business.

For the most part, the newly announced features represent incremental changes for Snap. Their functionality was already present on the platform in one way or another — the main differences being users can now link their own snaps (paperclip) and modify their voices without having to use AR lenses (voice filters). Instagram already allows certain users to add links to their Stories, and may look to implement similar versions of backdrops and voice filters features into Stories.

The new features could help keep Snap’s most active audiences engaged. Regardless, the company is likely also hoping to attract users and remedy its slowing user growth. Snap has yet to report Q2 2017 numbers, but the company has been facing slowing user growth — its 36% year-over-year (YoY) Q1 2017 daily user growth was lower than its roughly 53% YoY growth in Q1 2016. Solving the issue of slowing user growth could allow Snap to prove itself aside incumbents Google and Facebook.

Jessica Smith, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on app engagement that explores the current state of the app market, the issues around engaging consumers, and the tools at a publisher's disposal. It also identifies best practices for the implementation of some app engagement tools, and presents the pitfalls that:

• Identifies the major challenges in today's app market and explains why employing good app engagement practices is more important than ever before.
• Presents the major app engagement tools currently available.
• Examines the pros and cons of each app engagement tool while outlining some pitfalls that publishers encounter in implementing them.
• Prescribes best practices for adopting various app engagement tools or strategies.
• Assesses how the market will likely change over the next five years as emerging technologies change both consumer behavior with mobile devices and introduce new tools with which to engage consumers.

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