Social Media Club Hawaii to host free Snapchat event

The Hilo chapter of the statewide Social Media Club Hawaii will host an informal networking session focusing on Snapchat as part of National Social Media Day from 5:30-7 p.m. Thursday at Liko Lehua Café in Hilo.

Created in 2011, Snapchat is a free mobile messaging application on which people can share photos, texts and videos with their friends. The twist is that the images disappear after a matter of seconds.

The fact “snaps” disappear quickly has fueled its popularity with young people, who make up a large portion of the 100 million daily Snapchat users. However, many large companies are jumping on the Snapchat platform.

This is the fourth consecutive year Social Media Club Hawaii has hosted an East Hawaii event in observance of National Social Media Day. Previous events included Tweet-ups and Instameets, focusing on Twitter and Instagram.

“Events like this are a great way to learn about popular social media platforms and meet other people in the community active on social media,” says Denise Laitinen, a Big Island representative on the Social Media Club Hawaii board of directors. “Our National Social Media Day event is our biggest get together of the year and in the past we’ve had large turnouts for our Instameets and other events.”

People do not need to be experienced Snapchat users to attend, but they should sign up for a free Snapchat account beforehand. You also do not need a smartphone to use Snapchat; the free app can be downloaded to a variety of tablet devices that have camera capabilities, such as iPads.

National Social Media Day was founded in 2010 by Mashable, an independent online news site that focuses on digital culture and technology. Social Media Club Hawaii is part of a worldwide network of social media clubs.

Thursday’s event is free and open to the public.

For more information, email Laitinen at Denise@DeniseLaitinen.com. For more information about Social Media Club Hawaii, visit www.smchi.org.