Nir Eyal explains why Snapchat is habit-forming, answering a viewer’s question. He gives three main reasons: (1) action simplicity — Snapchat opens to the camera so the key behavior (taking a snap) is immediate and easy; (2) the 10-second clip constraint lowers friction and makes recording and re-recording short messages simpler; and (3) variable rewards — customization and social feedback (views) create intermittent reinforcement. He also notes Snapchat hides follower counts, which reduces follower-competition and shifts rewards toward identity-affirming behaviors rather than outcome-oriented metrics. The clip is framed as part of a Snap Q&A series where Eyal invites questions about consumer psychology and user retention.
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Hey Snapchat, this is my first snap storm here. I'm trying, I'm very inspired by Morgan Brown who showed me just how to use Snapchat past couple days. I really like the potential of these Snapchat little snap storms. I'm gonna try and do some over the next few days. I think from a habit forming point of view, Snapchat actually has solved a whole lot of stuff that was wrong with other platforms. When I tried to use other platforms like Periscope or Meerkat, I found that they were better than other ways of communic quick thoughts to my audience. But I think they didn't solve some of the fundamental problems around being on live video, namely that it's really hard to come up with what to say. So I think that Snapchat has really changed the game now that people have figured out how to collect their thoughts and package them into 10 second little clips here. And I want to give kudos to people who have used the platform like Mark Sister and other folks who are really sharing some tremendous value to other folks entrepreneurs out there. So in that tradition I want to try to use this new medium as well to communicate some ideas around habit forming technologies, how to increase user retention decrease churn. But here's the thing, I need your help. I want to know what questions you have about consumer psychology, user retention, any of these questions that you might have that I might be able to help with, let me know on Snap. I'm still learning how to use this medium but hopefully with your questions I can answer them and hopefully provide you with some value and have some fun. So waiting for your questions. Ask me anything. Hey Snapchat back in San Francisco from Austin and I got a great question. My first question with these snap storms around, what do I think of the Snapchat interface from a habit forming. So let me give you my three reasons that Snapchat kills it from a habit forming perspective. Reason number one is it has to do with the action phase of the hook. It's incredibly easy to do the key behavior which is to tape a quick snap. Unlike any other app out there that has gotten popular appeal, Snapchat puts you right on the camera page, not the feed, not anything else. They want you to take a picture. They make that easy. Number two surprisingly is the ten second rule that by making these little clips only ten seconds it actually is a constraint that makes it easier to put out the message. So unlike with Meerkat or Periscope where you have to think about what you're going to say. And you kind of have to say everything live here. I can do it in 10 second increments. So if I mess up as I just did, I can just re record it. No big deal. I think that's a great example of how we can use constraints in an interface for the win. Really amazing. The third reason I think that the Snapchat interface is pretty brilliant has to do with variable rewards. If you've had a chance to check out my book, you know, I'm a big fan of variable rewards, the third step of the hook model. And Snapchat has them in spade. So there's the variable reward of making this video and customizing it and optimizing it and you know, playing with the text and whatnot. And then of course there's the rewards of the tribe that come from when you share one of these snaps that you can see how many people viewed it. Now one thing that Snapchat did that's super, super interesting is that they don't show you your follower count. Now why do they do that? So I'm not sure how intentional that is, but I think it has to do with the fact that there's not a competition anymore for friends or followers like there is on Twitter. So on Facebook and Twitter you see people who are way out front who have millions of followers and millions of friends and that means you can't really catch up. Whereas Snapchat, that's not really the case. I could be talking to myself, I could be talking to a million people. I don't really know. I could see how many people viewed it, but I don't really know how many followers I have. And that's not the primary method of reward. I think that's really interesting because it becomes more of an identity affirming type behavior versus an outcome oriented behavior. And I think that's pretty special. That's my off the cuff analysis of Snapchat. I'm gonna start doing more of these. Please, please send me more questions and would love to hear from you. Thanks. Have a great day. By the way, should have mentioned that that question was from stringstory string story here on Snapchat. Her name is Susan and she sent that question in. So thanks so much.
