Earlier this month, Bloomberg Technology claimed that Snapchat now boasts more active daily users than Twitter; its user base is also expected to overtake that of both Twitter and Pinterest by the end of 2016.
Snapchat is just 4 years old, but it is widely used by Millennials, and is more popular than Instagram with Gen Z.
8 billion videos are viewed daily on the social network, which is predicted to become the main platform for digital video by 2020. Snapchat’s popularity has also affected digital video consumption on other platforms; people are now 9x more likely to watch something to completion if it comes in vertical format – once regarded as Snapchat’s anomaly.
However, the rise of digital video is by no means limited to Snapchat. Facebook announced last Tuesday that video now generates 13.2x more chatter on the platform than it did in 2015. Video is also growing on Instagram, and it’s front and centre to the long-term strategies of other tech-giants such as Twitter and Spotify.
 It will account to more than 80% of all consumer Internet traffic by 2020.
For brands, the rise of digital video is very good news. It allows for very sophisticated collection of data, which leads to more effective targeting, and it makes possible to reach a whole new generation of consumers at key stages of the shopper journey. According to comScore, product-related videos on e-stores are already making shoppers 64% more likely to complete purchases.