Snapchat growing in numbers and maturity

When the Snapchat app first began its assault on teen mobiles across the globe, no one would have dreamt of the force it would become only a few years into its tenure. Now a platform used by millions globally and valued at over $15 billion, Snapchat has set its sights on the digital advertising space, set to shake up the landscape of mobile marketing for good.

The fresh-faced, 24-year-old Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, sat down with Bloomberg for a rare interview late last month focusing on the growth of the social media platform and its plans to turn what many considered to once simply be a childish social sharing app, originally designed to target teenagers and young adults into a global force.

The growth of Snapchat since its introduction has been astounding to say the least. Compared to rival social media giants, Snapchat reached 100 million active monthly users in only 44 months compared to Facebook who took 54 weeks & Twitter, 65. When it first hit the market in July 2011, it took only 8 months for the platform to pass the one billion shared photos mark and another 4 months to reach over 20 million shared photos per day. In May of 2014, it was believed that Snapchat was sending 700 million photos and video a day!

The issue Spiegel faced though was just how he was going to convert the hundreds of millions of users into a profitable platform?

“After starting to run select video ads earlier this year, Snapchat is about to begin soliciting other big advertisers with some new numbers that assert its audience is bigger, younger, and more obsessive than anything on television. In a 23-page sales pitch it’s sending to ad agencies this month, the company says more than 60 percent of 13 - 34-year-old smartphone users in the U.S. are active on the service and together view more than 2 billion videos a day. That’s already about half the number of videos people watch on Facebook, which is seven years older and has 10 times as many members.” - Bloomberg

So what does the future hold for Snapchat and just how does it plan to revolutionise the advertising and mobile marketing landscape?

Amanda Walgrove of Contently puts together a comprehensive assessment of the key takeaways from the interview, focusing on the future of Snapchat's advertising efforts, its integration strategy moving forward and Spiegel's plan to turn the friendly social sharing App into a money making machine.