Snapchat steps up its own collaborative content

SAN FRANCISCO — Social networks are becoming more and more collaborative, and many are unveiling new features that promote interaction between users. Now, Snapchat is joining the club with a new feature called Shared Stories.

The latest craze on social networks seems to be collaborative content. Instagram already lets users publish common content across two accounts.

Now, it’s Snapchat’s turn to offer a similar option, but for Stories. Users can now allow their friends to add content to their own respective Story, leading to a combination of content that can help boost engagement on Snapchat.

To create Shared Stories, simply select the friends from your list that you want to allow to contribute to the Story, AFP reported.

The content created then becomes visible on the accounts of these users, explains Snap, which shared an explanatory video on YouTube.

The Snapchatters selected can in turn choose friends to add to the loop, in turn allowing them to create their own shared content. Users who have blocked a friend in the sharing loop are, however, alerted.

Like Stories, Shared Stories are only visible for 24 hours. However, unlike the usual Stories and Groups, users will find no shared chat function in this format.

This new option is reminiscent of the platform’s “Custom Stories” that allowed users to create group Stories. This format was, however, more limited by users’ location.

“Shared Stories is a new iteration of Custom Stories, a product that previously allowed Snapchatters to create a Story and add friends to view and contribute. Now, with our new and improved Shared Stories, Snapchatters who’ve been added to the group can add their friends as well, making it easier for the whole soccer team, camp squad, or group of new coworkers to get in on the fun,” Snap said in a news release.

Collaborative content has gained momentum in recent years with the success of TikTok.

The social network offers many options for using the content of other users and creating interactions, such as the “collage” function for adding excerpts of other users’ content to your own video, or the Duet function, which lets users split a video in two, with one side for each user’s content.