How Snapchat won this year's SXSW

This year, the app that everyone was talking about at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival wasn't something that debuted at the event. The platform didn't throw a massive party, or even have an official presence.


Still, for some reason, everyone couldn't stop talking about Snapchat.

"With SXSW you have people who tend to experiment with technology and a place where people are running around having unique experiences," said Josh Rickel, vice president of media and entertainment for social media marketing platform Spredfast. "Snapchat is perfectly designed to share these ephemeral moments."

There's no exact reason why so many people decided to download Snapchat for the first time during the festival in Austin, Texas. (While the platform didn't provide any official statistics on the number of downloads during the event, an informal survey of more than a dozen attendees by CNBC.com showed many people believed that Snapchat was the most used app this year at SXSW. Many of them had downloaded it for the first time as well.) Some noted it may have been because many teens running around were snapping, piquing curiosity.

"Snapchat has definitely hit mainstream in 2016 with audience demos expanding. This has been marked by traditional publications and political campaigns sharing content on the platform," said Tom Edwards, marketing agency Epsilon's chief digital officer of agency. "Snapchat inherently is also a great event platform. With SXSW music starting soon, you will see even more from Snapchat as they create Live Stories consisting of event-based user content and of course brand opportunities."

Source: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/16/how-snapchat-won-this-years-sxsw.html