Snapchat is no stranger since it launched on the social media scene in 2012, immediately gaining followers and support at an exponential rate.

As of May 2015, Snapchat reportedly had 100 million daily active users and was valued at more than $US15 billion.

Whether you’ve jumped on the Snapchat bandwagon or remain a naysayer, it is impossible to deny that this app is now firmly rooted in the social media landscape. It is fast creeping up on its more established competitors like Instagram and Twitter.

Brands have also begun to take notice of the rapidly growing social platform, with the likes of US brands Taco Bill and McDonald’s creating a Snapchat presence. Other global brands are using Snapchat to both raise awareness and as part of multi-channel activities. The US National Basketball Association, for example, encouraged fans to tune in to a webcast of player Kevin Durant via Snapchat stories.

Eager to reach the abundance of people hooked onto the Snapchat hype, KFC Australia used Snapchat to launch its Double Soft Shell Zinger Taco in June. The brand said snaps were viewed almost 3,000 times within the first three hours of going live.

To get the most out of your Snapchat experience, here are some hidden Snapchat features that many may not know about:

Save your Snapchat story to your phone

Snapchat also has another interesting little feature that most of us don’t know about. It’s always nice to look back down memory lane at photo and video archives. Snapchat stories typically capture random, quirky and sometimes weird moments that many of us would like to save down (and possibly reshare) for future use. Brands too can take advantage of this feature, sharing the saved story file to Facebook or a variety of social media networks for promotional and engagement purposes.

To save your Snapchat story to your phone as a video file, simply access the story menu and click the three dots on the right side of your story. This will let you view every clip included in your story, and download it in its entirety.

Video Chats

A little known additional feature within Snapchat is that you can engage in video conversations, in addition to simply having a text chat. By going to the screen that shows who you have sent and received snaps from, you can swipe a username to chat (text) with the person. If the person happens to be online at the same time, a blue circle will appear on the bottom right (by the “send a chat” box). If they’re not online, this box will appear yellow. If you press and hold this box, the other user will see a little bubble appear on their screen that has your face in it. If they choose to accept, the video chat begins!

The app will notify you if your friend is online when chatting, and if you’re both chatting at the same time you simple have to press and hold to share live video.

Replaying snaps

The thrill of the forbidden! There is definitely something exciting about being able to access content that is supposed to have disappeared into a black hole. Whilst the principle of this is somewhat debatable (the point of Snapchat is that photos/videos are viewed once, then erased forever), it is worth knowing that once a day, Snapchat allows you to bend the rules and replay a single snap a second time. (This is only available for the last viewed snap, and the user will receive a notification that their snap is being replayed, so choose wisely!)

Some quick steps for accessing this feature:

• Go to settings
• Select the ‘Manage’ tab under ‘Additional Services’
• Turn on ‘Replay’
• Tap the snap you just watched and enjoy!

Filters

Move over Instagram!

Snapchat has joined the filter frenzy, adding a variety of filter choices to add to your snaps. This feature is not switched on by default though, so just follow these steps to access this function:

• Swipe left or right once you’ve taken a photo
• Click the ‘I want filters’ button at the bottom of the screen
• Tick the filters box

That’s all there is to starting and working with Snapchat. Get snapping (and chatting) to your hearts content.