When was the last time you did something that made your friend say “Wow, how did you do that?” In this day of sharing and posting and pinning and retweeting, it’s even more important to stand out.
If you post a photo, for instance, you want it to be something that people will instantly notice amongst a sea of generic selfies and food pics. If it’s been a while since you’ve made something that really stands out, you’re in luck and will thank me after reading this.
Of course, there are a ton of apps and devices now that you can use to get noticed. But let’s focus on one that’s really on the rise right now: Snapchat.
Snapchat has taken the usual format for social media apps and added a welcome twist. As with many apps, you can share photos, videos, or other kinds of messages. The great thing about Snapchat, though, is that when you send something out, you can decide how long the other person gets to look at it. Snapchat messages are self-deleting. This is perfect for people who share a lot of photos and videos, as you don’t have to worry about bogging down somebody’s hard drive with pictures of that funny dog you passed on your way to work. Of course, it’s also good for sending sensitive information.
With Snapchat, you will be equipped with some awesome tools to impress your friends and family. Luckily for all of us, the Snapchat app has recently added cool tricks to make your photos and videos even better than before. You can use a number of different tricks to make your photo have a filter, use secret crayon colors, include emoji, and a ton of other options. That is what I will cover in this in depth article and hope I answer all of your questions and leave you with a better understanding of how to use Snapchat. Yes, the apps are designed to be easy to use, so anybody can pick them up and start using them right away. But once you master the handful of off the beaten track options and techniques that I’m going to share with you, you’ll be a real Snapchat pro, and one step closer to getting those “Wow, how did you do that” reactions from your friends.
It may sound a bit silly, but you’d be surprised how many times people have asked me how I did one of the tricks below in Snapchat. If you know of any new secrets, please let me know below in the comments. Snapchat is constantly updating their app so they may include more as time goes on that are not currently available.
“Artistic tricks divert from the effect that an artist endeavors to produce, and even excellent elements such as bullets, arrows, brackets, ornate initials, are at best superficial ornamentation unless logically employed.” Paul Rand (Nothing to do with Rand Paul)
What is a Snapchat Trick?
You may not be familiar, but Snapchat includes secret options within their app that many people don’t realize. On top of that, there are a number of settings that are not obvious if you don’t already know where they are. These secret options allow you to do a number of modifications and changes to your images, as well as to your profile and the way other people view your profile.
Let us know if you hear of any additional updates or secrets to come out. It is interesting to hear about what other people and the community uses regularly and what they find to not be very helpful.
Best Snapchat Tricks of 2015
Below, I will outline what I believe to be the best Snapchat tricks below and provide some additional tips that will help you to impress your friends, especially if they don’t already know of these.
1. Snapchat Secret Colors
The first Snapchat trick is to turn on secret colors that you can use to draw anything you want and add a bit of flare to your photo or video. I know a lot of people that use the secret colors to draw transparent or grey colors to add a bit more variation.
You can use the crayon option to draw a funny hat on yourself, add a cool background to the image, draw a message to your friend and more. The old adage goes that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well why just send a picture of, say, a politician and then follow it up with a message describing him as a clown, when you could just turn on the crayon tool and turn him into a clown yourself.
The first option is to draw using the white crayon. If you have an Android device, you already have that as an option within the color bar. Simply tap the pencil at the top right to reveal the color bar. If you use an iPhone, you will have to place your finger on the rainbow color bar and then slide your finger without lifting it to the top left corner of your screen. You will notice that the color changes to white as you move to the left
Another cool trick is to use the black crayon. This is very similar to the white crayon with Android users already having that option built in. For iPhone users you follow the same steps as above and press without lifting your finger and slide your finger from the color bar to the bottom of your screen.
To modify the color to a grey or variation color crayon you can follow the steps above that give you the black crayon but just don’t go all the way down to the bottom of the screen, simply stop mid way down on the screen.
Finally, you can draw with a transparent crayon, but this only works for Android devices and won’t work if you use an iPhone to play on Snapchat (keep an eye on this article, though, since this is one of the things we expect Snapchat’s iPhone team to get on pretty soon!). The transparent color is super cool, it is about 50% transparent and allows you to see the background of the actual image along with the transparent color on top of it.
To get the color to show up, on an Android device tap and hold your finger on the rainbow color bar and you will notice a all of the color options will show up. At that point, you can choose the transparent color.
If you’re having trouble visualizing what I’m talking about with the color bar, you can check out the video below that shows you in real time how to draw in black and white, along with a bunch of other various colors. The possibilities are endless!
2. Snapchat Replay Trick
The next trick is to enable the Snapchat replay feature to view a Snap again even after you’ve seen it once. This is a great option if you want to replay an image or video if you didn’t read the caption the first time, wasn’t paying attention, or even if you decide that you want to take a screenshot of the snap after watching it at first.
TIP: You have to make sure you replay a snap immediately after seeing it. If you close out of the app or go to another screen, for instance if you watch another snap, you will not be able to replay it and the image or video will be permanently deleted.
But remember, Snapchat is designed to protect privacy and to not take up as much of a person’s time as other social media apps. Another note, in keeping with this observation, is that you can only replay a snap once per 24 hours so make sure it is one that you really want to see a second time. You won’t be able to replay again until 24 hours have passed by.
But while this option is always already available in Snapchat, it isn’t automatically turned on. To get the replay trick to turn on, follow these steps:
- Tap on the Snapchat app to open it.
- From there, swipe right so that you see the list of old snaps
- Tap on settings at the top right
- Now, choose Manage Additional Settings and turn on the replay feature.
- From here, you can replay a snap that you’ve just seen. Simply go to view a new snap and when you finish watching it you will see text that gives you the option to replay.
- Tap on the snap right after viewing it and select “Replay” when it asks you if you’re sure you want to replay that snap.
3. Snapchat Number Of Best Friends
The next trick we will cover is an option to edit how many best friends are displayed when someone views your profile. In case you weren’t already aware, if you head over to the list of all your Snapchat friends, you can tap on their name to see their profile. It’s not a lot, basically, their Snapchat score, name, and who their best friends are.
Check out your profile and see who pops up when you see who Snapchat rates as your best friends. By default, that number is 3, but you can change the number. If you really use Snapchat a ton, you can bump it up from 3 to 5 to 7 if you really want to. That way, people can see who you like the most on the app and send and receive the most snaps from.
To change the number of best friends, simply head over to the app, swipe right to see the screen with the settings icon at the top right. Tap settings and then select “Manage Additional Settings” as viewed above in the screenshot. You will notice a drop down menu to change the total number of best friends you display in your profile.
NOTE: If you don’t use Snapchat a lot, or haven’t used it in a few weeks you may find that you have no best friends. That is because it takes into account how recently you Snapped with someone. Just start using it more frequently and best friends will start to show up. In the meantime, don’t be discouraged. Of course, with all the friend-based terminology most social media apps use, it’s almost like they want us to take it personally.
4. Large Emoji Snapchat Trick
The next and one of the coolest tricks is to include large emoji into your snaps, a feature that will surely make your friends impressed. Emoji are always fun, and Snapchat has some unique ones. To do this, you have to set up the app so that it will accept a large emoji. It’s not very hard and will let you get that super large smiley face on your photo of brunch.
First, you will want to make sure your emoji keyboard is turned on. If you have an iPhone, simply go into settings and then to keyboard and search for the emoji keyboard. Turn it on and you will notice a little globe in the keyboard that allows you to type emoji. If you’re on Android, you can download an emoji app or turn on the default emoji keyboard in the settings if it’s not already on.
Now that you can type emoji, head over to the Snapchat app. You will need to go into the settings again and once you’re there you want to select manage. You will notice an option to enable special text. This will make you able to type in large text, so turn it on.
Now, you’re ready to type your super large emoji on your photo. Take a photo and you will notice a “T” at the top right, simply tap the T to make it bigger and now you have turned on the feature to type in large text. Head over to your emoji keyboard and start typing some smileys, snowmen, pizza, etc. You can now type huge text and emojis or emoticons onto your Snaps.
TIP: After typing the text you can move it around by tapping and dragging your finger along the text up and down. This will give you the option to get it out of the center of the picture and able to see the main subject.
That wraps up this awesome guide on the absolute best Snapchat tricks that will surely earn you some cool points from your friends. Have you seen any other tricks that belong on this list? If so, let us know so our readers can also use them on their photos with friends.
If you enjoyed this article, please share with your friends so they can use these tips too! Also, if you can think of any tips we didn’t mention here, like how to manually delete Snapchat messages and conversations, let us know in the comments!
