Report: Snapchat is Most Important Social Network Among Millennials

A study released Thursday by LendEdu, an online marketplace for student loan refinancing, shows that millennials are most likely to check Snapchat before turning to Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.

According to the report released by LendEdu, 58 percent of university students stated that they open Snapchat first when checking social media. 27 percent check Instagram first while 13 percent choose Facebook and only 2 percent check LinkedIn. These results may seem quite at odds with the active daily user count for these apps. Snapchat boasts 158 million active daily users, which pales in comparison to Facebook’s 1.8 billion daily user figure, but it is preferred by younger users according to the study.

“Checking Snapchat has become a ritualistic occurrence for most millennials, a demographic coveted by nearly every single company in existence today,” LendEdu said in a statement. Snapchat recently went public gaining 44 percent its first day. The company’s stock price has, however, been in steady decline since it’s initial opening, losing as much as 26 percent in the two weeks after its IPO.

Social media platform Twitter was not included in LendEdu’s report. Twitter has struggled to maintain user engagement in recent times, even being sued by their investors for their failure to meet their active user numbers. Twitter has turned to streaming video in recent times, attempting to revitalize their user base and increase advertisement revenue.

According to Fortune, Twitter will also be opening its API to allow publishers to push streaming videos into Twitter at any time. Until recently, a partnership deal had to be signed between Twitter and the company wishing to stream their content on the platform. This new and more open API will streamline the video streaming process, in an effort by Twitter to catch up to its rivals on streaming video.