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Early this morning, Hassan Whiteside announced that he will be returning to the Miami Heat for the 2016-2017 season. In 2010, Lebron James announced "The Decision" to take on South Beach via a one-hour ESPN special. Just six years later, Whiteside, one of the year's best high-profile free agents stated his decision via Snapchat (oh, and The Players Tribune).
While the decision to announce on the messaging app will no doubt continue to be viewed as a running joke throughout free agency, it's also very telling of what's to come for the app. Why is Snapchat taking over the lives of both average Joe's and celebrities alike? How have two to 10- second images and videos made Snapchat more live streaming than any of its social media counterparts? Because Snapchat has achieved what all social media outlets have strived for -- authenticity. On other social channels, you can be portrayed however you'd like. On Snapchat, you are who you are and you are where you are. Geotags help prove that.
For the first time, celebrities are taking advantage of this social app in a way unlike the others -- they're all more or less taking the time to post themselves. And people are able to connect with brands and celebrities by actually seeing their day to day, the most intimate day to day scenes that the media is kept out of. The one's the media can't misconstrue. This is where celebrities really have control.
Snapchat's raw, charmingly lo-quality style means that it still seems undiscovered by most grownups and advertisers, despite it recently raising $1.81 billion, upgrading its valuation after financing to approximately 17.8 billion, and surpassing Twitter in the number of active users. While global brands have colonized Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat still seems on the fringe. They're getting there, they're crowded people's feeds, but it almost feels as if its too late.
In 2013, when Snapchat introduced the story feature, allowing users to string together short video clips to create a narrative, it paved the way for celebrities to build their brand on their own time and for themselves. Celebrities like DJ Khaled, Jared Leto, and the aforementioned Hassan Whiteside exponentially grew their personal brands through the use of the messaging app. Additionally, new celebrities were created because of how they used the app, like YesJulz and Yvan Rodic. What investors might not want to know, but brands will, is that building a brand via your own Snapchat story may be more effective than buying advertising. Companies like TheSkimm and sports teams like the Dallas Cowboys are going where their audience is, and allowing them to explore the intimate details of their lives, at the viewer's discretion.
A reason reality TV has started dying out is because it became so fake that people were in desperate need of real reality. With Snapchat, you're almost unable to be fake. While it is still relatively unknown how Snapchat will leverage its platform and users to make substantial profits, the start-ups, brands, and people who grew up with a phone in their hands have already determined how to leverage this media on a whole new level. A level where the media doesn't have control, a level where celebrities and "little people" alike can let you know what they're doing and feeling as it's happening in real time. Snapchat is so popular because the users, at least for now, have total control.
Hassan Whiteside's decision via a #HeatNation post on his Snapchat story is just the beginning. And that's pretty exciting.