YouTube's latest social feature allows users to share videos on Snapchat as stickers. If you liked a video that a friend or family member might be interested in, you can immediately share it via Snapchat as a sticker affixed to the snap.
The social feature, available on iOS and Android smartphones, brings up the Snapchat app when you select it from the "Share" menu of a YouTube video. A helpful box containing the thumbnail and title of the video will appear in your snapshot. And after you take a photo, you can adjust the size, angle, and location of the thumbnail in the shot. Then, when you've sent your snap to a friend, they can open the YouTube video simply by tapping on the link embedded in the thumbnail.
The new sharing process eliminates the need to directly copy a link from YouTube and paste it into Snapchat. Instead, simply hit the Share button to upload the video to your snapshot, with all the information and link contained in one handy snippet.
Analysis: improvement or trick?
Within the confines of Snapchat, this new YouTube video sharing feature sounds great. This requires fewer clicks and link management and means Snapchat doesn't have to rely on your clipboard for copied content. It's also nice to be able to customize the location, size, and angle of the embedded video. But will Snapchat users really be impressed by this feature, and more importantly, will people use it?
The real issue here is whether or not Snapchat is the most convenient social platform for YouTube video sharing. While this revamp of YouTube video sharing via Snapchat is an improvement, it's really just a neat addition to what's still a cumbersome process.
You still need to create a plugin to host the YouTube clip. That in itself could be quite a long process, depending on your own preferences and attention to detail when it comes to taking photos. In this case, it would be much easier and faster to simply share a YouTube link through more traditional social platforms, such as Whatsapp, Discord, or even Twitter and Facebook, depending on the group of contacts you want to reach.
It's still a win for avid Snapchat users, of course, especially those who use it as their primary social platform. We can even see that there are some particularly creative uses for this YouTube video sharing feature. An example that comes to mind would be an online merchant who takes a photo of their product and embeds a YouTube clip that the user can open and learn more about the product.
This is where, in our opinion, lies the biggest problem with this update. It is harmless and does not take away from the Snapchat experience. However, it's also very situational, it will work better for some more than others, and it's not something we see a group of Snapchat users getting together to share their favorite YouTube videos with friends. There are faster ways to do this, though those methods aren't nearly as fun or creative.