During my two day freshman orientation at The University of Southern California in 2018, I added about 40 people on Snapchat, while only adding 2 people’s numbers to my contacts. I have asked some of my friends at others schools, and they all tell me that they had very similar experiences.

The primary reason for this, is that it is extremely easy to add new friends on Snapchat. Using a branded QR code that contains a user’s profile information, called a Snapcode, a user can quickly add another just by opening the app.

The use of these Snapcodes allow users to quickly share their profile so other users can add them to their friends. This is much faster than adding somebody’s phone number to your contacts (1 second scanning a Snapcode vs. 1 minute manually typing out their name and phone number). This comes in especially handy during an event like orientation; where groups of people who have never met all want to exchange information to stay in contact. Additionally, since adding someone on Snapchat is a two-way action (just like Facebook friend requests), only one person has to scan the Snapcode to become friends, and now both people can stay connected.

The other aspect that makes Snapchat ideal for first time connections is people often have a lower barrier of entry into their Snapchat friends than they do into their phone contacts. This means, that there are lower stakes in asking for someone’s “snap” as opposed to asking for their phone number. This is much more of a cultural phenomenon as opposed to a feature within Snapchat, but this drives a lot of people to reach for Snapchat as the first place they connect. Whether at a party, or on a dating app, adding each other on Snapchat is often the default way to move the conversation forward.

With Snapchat being the first place many people in college are adding each other, it now means that they can use all of additional features of Snapchat to help manage their newly formed connections. Salesforce (a leading CRM provider) defines a CRM as such:

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a technology for managing all your company's relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. The goal is simple: Improve business relationships to grow your business.

For college kids, we can think of using CRM software as a way to improve your personal relationships, instead of your professional relationships. Through this view, we see how Snapchat provides a range of features targeted at improving users’ personal relationships:

Location: Snapchat allows a user to see where their friends are throughout the world on an easy to use map. This means I can easily see if I have any friends in the city I’m currently staying in, or I can look to see where a specific friend is. If I am visiting a new city that I may not know particularly well, I can go on Snapchat and message any friends who may be in the same area. You can also choose to only share your location with specific friends, or disable the feature entirely.

Streaks + Charms: For friends that you communicate with frequently, Snapchat has a system of “streaks” where you get a badge next to their name with a number to signify how many days in a row you have stayed in touch (both users must send the other a message every 24 hours). This has no doubt helped with retention and engagement for the app itself, but it also provides a nice push to continue to stay in touch (every day!) with your friends. It is not uncommon for people to have many streaks that are in the high hundreds or even thousands of days, meaning that these people have snapped each other every day for 3 or 4 years. My personal longest streak is 1,455. In addition to streaks, Snapchat also a number of trinkets, which it calls “Charms”, that describe your friendship with another user. Here is an example of what that looks like:

Birthdays + Signs: Similar to Facebook, Snapchat also shows you when it is one of your friend’s birthday. This makes it easy to send them a happy birthday message to reignite a relationship that may have dwindled out. Additionally, based off of a user’s birthday, Snapchat now displays astrological signs. You can read about your own astrological chart, or explore a friend’s chart. This is not something that I use, but it is another way to keep in touch with your friends.

With all of these features encouraging engagement, the final piece of the puzzle that makes Snapchat ideal for maintaining a large number of personal relationships is its primary messaging format: selfies. The idea of sending selfies back and forth (often without any context or other text) may seem strange to someone who did not grow up using Snapchat. However, it has become commonplace now with young adults and teenagers. Since sending a selfie is very quick and low pressure, while also intimate, it provides a quick and efficient manner to continue your relationships with little effort. While it may seem trivial, seeing a friend’s face every day does bring a certain type of closeness to that relationship. In a time where our faces are often hidden behind masks, a selfie of your best friend can be just what you need to brighten your day.

Snapchat not just encourages you, but makes it easy, to stay in touch with your friends over long distances and long periods of time. So, it’s no surprise that Snapchat is the place where college kids choose to maintain and grow their personal relationships.