With Snapchat Group Chat and Custom Stories, Will Snapchat become the new Slack for millennials?

Snapchat is typically considered a 1:1 or 1:many communication platform, however Snap has started adding more collaborative tools, making it easier for groups to work together. Here's our guide to Snapchat's collaborative features, including Snapchat Group Chat, Custom Stories and Friendmoji.

Snapchat Group Chat

Snapchat group chats appear in your chat screen, but contain multiple friends – up to 16 Snapchatters to be exact! These are perfect for making weekend plans or a summer holiday, chatting to your squad or study friends.

• To start a Group Chat, swipe right from the main screen or tap ? in the bottom left corner of the home screen in Snapchat
• Open a new chat (tap a little ?+ icon in the top right corner) and select the friends you'd like to chat with. You can only add people that you are friends on Snapchat with (as in you both added each other as a friend) so you can't add Kylie Jenner to your chat (or other celebrity or brand that you follow)
• When in the Group Chat, you can choose to send photos from a camera roll, record an audio, take a photo or a video with the Snapchat Camera, record a video text and send an emoji. Video chats and voice calls aren’t available in Group Chat
• Press and hold on a group to edit the group settings, including the group name and notifications, and to see who is currently in the group. Snapchat Group Chat settings are also accessible from a hamburger menu in the top left corner of the chat
• When group members open the Group Chat, their name will light up inside a bubble above your keyboard
• You can send Snaps directly to the group from the Send To screen
• You can tap on Group Chat members to start a quick chat with them. If you are not a friend with someone who was added to the group chat by a friend, you will see an option to add them as a friend
• You can tap or press and hold on a Chat to see who’s read it, saved it, and more
• You can change the Friend Emoji that appears next to all of your groups in Snapchat settings > Manage Preferences > Friend Emojis.
• Snaps sent to a group don't count for Snapstreaks you have with individual Snapchatters
• Group chats are deleted by default after 24 hours, unlike 1:1 chats, which delete once you both leave the chat screen

Custom Stories

In late May, Snapchat added custom stories, allowing users to post to a join story with a group of friends (Group Stories), as well as friends of friends through geofencing (Geofenced Stories).

• To create a custom story, swipe left from the home screen and access the Stories tab
• Tap ➕ in the top right corner to create a new custom story
• Name your story to enable collaboration options
• Decide whether you’d like to create a Group Story (choose friends to collaborate with) or Geofenced Story (choose location)
• When you are ready, create a Snap and choose whether to post it to your own story, Our Story (your local story curated by Snapchat team) or the Custom Story that you have just created. As your friends whom you've included in the Custom Story will be posting to the story, you will see all the snaps posted here as a part of one story shared with friends
• You can only create and add to up to 3 Custom Stories at a time
• Custom Stories can include up to 1,000 Snaps at a time! After that, any new Snaps added to a Story will replace the oldest ones
• Custom Stories snaps only last for 24 hours, and the stories will last as long as friends keep contributing to it, otherwise they will also disappear after 24 hours… but the person who created the story can save it to their memories or camera roll!
• A Custom Story will earn more ? the longer it lasts

Friendmoji

Not to be confused with Friend Emojis, or the symbols beside one's friends’ names that indicate how you interact with them (???).

• If two friends have Bitmoji linked in Snapchat, they can find friendmoji, or stickers that include both friends interacting with each other in Bitmoji format
• Friendmoji only appear in chat or when one responds to a friend’s snap
• One can only have two people in a Bitmoji at a time, so when in a group chat, friendmoji will include Bitmoji from the person who wants to use it and a friend who most recently posted
• If you and your friend use Bitmoji and you are at the same location (for example, at a party or in a car doing a road trip), you can see your Friendmoji interacting on Snapchat's recent addition: Snap Map

Do you use Snapchat's collaborative tools? Comment below and share your experience!