When it comes to Snapchat, it seems like everyone out there is doing the same thing. But if you're getting tired of receiving and sending boring selfies, blurry videos from the club, and photos of food that look prettier on camera, have no fear — there are a lot of ways to stand out on Snapchat. Whether it's an individual, personalized snap or your public snap story, there are so many creative ways to send people messages, create drawings, or communicate ideas on Snapchat; it's definitely worth taking the basic idea and running with it, transforming it into your own personal platform or portfolio in the process.
We mere humans aren't the only ones looking to step up our Snapchat game, either: Big companies and media corporations like People magazine, Vox Media, Cosmopolitan, ESPN, Vice, BuzzFeed, MTV, and Comedy Central are hard at work creating content based around the Snapchat "discover channels."They're literally putting content in their users' hands, using the Snapchat platform to deliver news, exclusive content, and other fun stuff. Neat, right?
Like Twitter and Facebook, Snapchat transforms the way we receive our news and information, so it's certainly worth it to stay on top of your snap game. Who knows? You might even get hired as a Snapchat producer one day. So as a part of your training and education, here are 10 ways to stand out on Snapchat and have a cooler online presence than all your peers:
1. Turn Your Story Into A Mini Movie
Something I love to do with my snap story is use three or four different 10-second segments to make a (super) short movie. The plot can be as simple as someone waking up to something as complicated as a trip to the moon, all depending on how you allocate your time to each scene. Because there's no limit to how many snaps you can post, you can make your movie as long as you want; remember though, that people might not sit through a 200-second story. The more succinct your movie, the better.
2. Incorporate Emoji In Realistic Ways
This is my favorite thing to do on Snapchat. Take a look at your surroundings — whether you're outside, at a desk, in a classroom, at the gym, or in bed, there's probably at least one emoji that could blend into your photo realistically. Put the champagne bottle emoji on your coffee table and scale it to size, or put the traffic light emoji on a wire above you to make it look like you're stopped in the car. Go out and incorporate several into one snap story — before you know it, your entire world will be teeming with emoji people and objects.
3. Make Geofilters Look Cooler
Geofilters are already a pretty neat feature of Snapchat, partially because some of them rep your hometown so well and partially because they help you figure out where you are when you have no clue. It's pretty easy to submit your own idea for a geofilter to Snapchat, but if you don't have the time for that, use emoji and the paint tool to create your own embellishments and stump your friends. Above is before applying a geofilter, and below is after:
4. Do A Short Stand-Up Routine In Your Story
Got something funny you want to get off your chest? Use your snap story and Snapchat's video feature to record your routine, kind of like you would with a short video. If you're funny, people will send you lots of love via Snapchat chat, text message, and their own snap videos. Not that I would know, since no one ever watches my stand-up act (single tear).
5. Sync The Face-Recognition Software To Weird Parts Of Your Body
Sometimes the face-recognition software messes up your lens, causing it to cling to your left cheek or make your eyeball puke rainbows. During these moments, we get a glimpse of the beautiful world of the glitch. But sometimes we want more than just a glimpse, so try deliberately syncing different parts of your body with the app and see if the lens will stick to your elbow or turn your fist into a puppy. It's pretty amusing for both the sender and recipient.
6. Writer Longer Lines Of Text
I understand that the point of apps like Snapchat and Twitter is textual brevity, but sometimes you just have a lot more to say than the space that a single line provides. If your creativity can't pour through with just a few words, go to your phone's Notes app and open up a blank note. Hit enter a few times, and then copy the multiple lines of blank space. Then, head over to Snapchat, tap your screen, and paste — voilà! Want even more good news? You can customize the text in all the standard ways so you don't have to sacrifice style and art.
7. Adopt A Different Personality For Each Selfie Lens
Think of a sentence. It could be a dramatic sentence, a funny sentence, or a strange sentence. Now go into your lenses, apply the first lens to your face, and say the sentence as you imagine is appropriate for this filter. In the filter above, for example, I might use a very sad voice to ask for a treat.
8. Make Use Of The Rewind Filter
I was at a pool party when I discovered it was really funny to take Snapchat video of people launching themselves from the water slide into the water, and then throwing the rewind filter on it: It looked like they levitated out of the pool, magically defied gravity, and slid up to the top of the slide. The rewind filter makes almost everything look cooler — a faucet appears to suck water back in, cars seem to be driving backwards, a pencil sketch looks like it's being undone, and so on. It's mesmerizing.
9. Blow Up Emoji To Add Color Over Your Snaps
Most people know that you can swipe right after you take a shot to get various filters on your snaps, like the black-and-white filter, time stamp, and one that makes you look tan. But if you want your skin to be filtered through pink, green, or even gold, you can get essentially any color filter you want with the simple use of an emoji. To do this, first select an emoji that contains a color you like and make the emoji so large that it starts to get pixelated. If you do it just right and are able to cover your screen with a translucent pixel at the edge of your emoji, it can make for a nice, light filter. If you want a thicker layer of color, move the emoji around to test different parts with different thicknesses.
10. Find Secret Colors
If you're an iPhone user, the color ribbon offered on Snapchat only includes a handful of colors; it's missing shades like white, black, gray, and pink. But there's a neat way to change that — tap the drawing tool and press down on the color ribbon. Then, while still holding your finger on the screen, trace down to the bottom left or bottom right of the screen to get black. Move it up and down to select pink, gray, white, and tons of colors in between. It's super easy, a lot of fun, and could make your snaps look way cooler!
Good luck and may the Snapchat gods be with you.
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Images: Mehak Anwar/Bustle (10)
