TAKING & EDITING A SNAP (Creating Content) - How To Use Snapchat (& Start Creating Content)

TAKING & EDITING A SNAP (Creating Content)

The entirety of your content creation tools for Snapchat lie on this screen.  Let’s go ahead and tap the camera button once to take a picture and see what we can do with it:

To delete the picture and try again, you can tap the x in the top right corner.  If you’re happy with what you’ve got, let’s add some text.  You can do this either by tapping the ‘T’ in the upper right hand corner, or by tapping anywhere on your screen/picture:

Type whatever you like and then tap any blank space in your picture to get out of typing mode.  You should have something like this:

If you wish to move the placement of your text, you can simply press the darkened bar to the left or right of your text, and drag it up or down with your finger.  Here’s what my snap looks like after repositioning:

Note:  If you would like to place larger text on your snap, you can simply tap the T icon again after typing to try a few different styles.

Not bad, but let’s spice it up some more.  Tap the pencil icon in the top right corner, then draw with your finger on the screen; I’ve gone ahead and pointed an arrow at my coworker:

You can change the color of the ink by pressing within the color bar under the pencil, and you can step backwards to undo mistakes with the backward arrow to the left of the pencil button.    Tap the pencil button itself when you’re finished to get out of drawing mode.

Finally, let’s add a sticker.  Stickers are just emojis that can be placed and resized on your snap to add a little extra character.  For this image, I’m going to add a laptop sticker to emphasize the office environment.

To add a sticker, tap the Post-It note looking icon next to the T.  You’ll get a library of emojis like the one below.  Scroll up, down, left, and right to take a look at everything that’s available, then tap the one you want to use.  Once it’s placed, use to fingers and pinch to rotate and resize your sticker.  When you’re done, you’ll have a snap like the one below, ready to send!

You are not required to add any text, stickers/emojis, or drawing elements to a snap before using it.  These are simply suggestions that can help to add character and context to the relatively short video and picture messages of the Snapchat platform.

A Note On Video:  In order to snap video, rather than a still image, simply hold down the camera button for up to 10 seconds, rather than tapping it; lift up your finger when you want the video to finish.  At this point, your video will loop continuously and you’ll have the same options to edit it (text, drawing, stickers) as before with a picture snap; editing and sharing video works exactly the same as sharing still images.