You've finally caved to social media peer pressure and created a Snapchat account for your brand. To get a feel for the app, you decide to create a quick first test post. You start swiping, left, right, up, down...and much to your dismay, every direction you swipe produces a different, unexpected result. The added knowledge that even the preteen set navigates the app with no apparent effort is enough to make you want to tear your hair out.
Luckily enough, PR News recruited a Snapchat expert, Leslie Douglas, senior social media manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers, for a crash course in Snapchat navigation. First things first: As Leslie puts it, "Before you start cross-promoting and using Snapchat as a platform, you need to know how to use it on a personal level." The numbered steps refer to Leslie's Snapchat layout diagram, below.
- When you open up the app, you'll be in its default camera screen. You can snap photos and video from here.
- Swipe down for the Account Settings screen. (Leslie highlighted the Support screen as a "treasure trove" of need-to-know info for Snapchat beginners). Add friends, see who's added you, and make changes to your profile settings.
- From the camera screen, swipe right for the chat screen. Here, you can look at chat history and snaps from your friends in the past 24 hours. You can also see if they've opened a snap you've sent them.
- From the camera screen, swipe left for Stories, where you can view your own Story (snaps taken in the last 24 hours), updates to your friends' Stories and a scrolling list of recent updates to Snapchat's partnered Discover channels.
- From the Stories screen, swipe left again for the Discover screen, a more robust list of Snapchat's partnered channels.
Bonus tip: To max out the quality of your snaps, Leslie advises that you get a selfie stick ("cheesy though it may seem"), a tripod (for multiple shots from the same angle), a stylus (for better drawings on top of your snaps), and a backup battery.
Follow Leslie: @lwadouglas
Follow Sophie: @sophiemaerowitz