After last week’s sun-inspired tangent, I’m back in the office and full of Internet goodness to share with you guys.

Spoiler: Snapchat and Periscope are killing it right now, and that’s bad news for pretty much everything else. It’s been a trip to watch as Snapchat has raced from kids’ toy to marketing tool that bald people in suits discuss in very serious tones. The same thing happened with Instagram, Facebook, and even websites, so now the real fun comes in watching the absolute predictability of it all.

There was one major announcement today from Snapchat that I never could have predicted, and #NYFW just wrapped up, which is most useful for showing us exactly how all of the cool kids are doing the social medias this season.

DIY Snapchat Filters

That’s right – you, too, can have your very own geofilter.

Wait, what’s a geofilter?

One of the unique features of Snapchat: users can add designs to their photos and videos by swiping. There are typically only a couple available at any given time, and they show up based on your phone’s physical location.

Alright, so what?

Apparently, we can now all go into the web-based Snapchat backend and upload our own filters to appear within small areas (1/2 – 20 city blocks) and for up to a couple of days. There’s a cost, of course, which they say is going to range from $5 – $2000.

That’s huge for just about any marketing event that involves people showing up at a physical location. The obvious ones are restaurant openings, product releases, and fundraisers, but what about guerrilla marketing, public shows, or city-wide scavenger hunts?

The ability to create a filter is also the ability to finally get people sharing a branded message on Snapchat, rather than just viewing, and that’s where the magic really happens.

Orange Mocha Frappuccinos, Anyone?

At the Super Bowl for really really ridiculously good looking people, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook took their first ever losses. Total conversation volume around New York Fashion Week was down dramatically from 2015, and anyone who’s seen photos of all of the celebs on front row isn’t surprised.

The one thing that all of those hyper-connected people had in common: They were constantly Snapping.

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Instagram has become the perfectly edited magazine that requires a team of professionals to stage every post, and Twitter is the best for breaking news + sports commentary, but in-the-moment visual content? We’re literally obsessed with Snapchat this season.

One caveat: Periscope (Twitter’s own live streaming service) was everything with the bloggers, and they used the app to live stream events, parties, and behind the scenes. It has a real chance of becoming a major player, and it’s already seeing major adoption.

We’ve already done some experimenting with Periscope and will be running our first client live streams in the coming months.

The Big Whoop

All of this adds up to a few big things. First: Love it or hate it, Snapchat is flexing some serious muscle as it continues to establish itself as one of the biggest players in social. This is proof that it is possible to compete with juggernauts like Facebook and Twitter. (A truth that Ello, This, and Peach should be happy to hear, but might not wish to acknowledge). Finally – and we’ve been saying this for a while – we’ve only just scratched the surface of the full power of video content and we can’t wait to watch where it goes next. (See what I did there?)

Thanks for reading. If you have any feedback/suggestions/sarcastic comments to throw my way, by all means call me out in public: @Conner_G, or just email me at conner@wearejunction.com.

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