Screenshots, stories, drawings and filters are just a few things students can look forward to with Kent State’s new Snapchat account.

Kent State officially launched its Snapchat on April 21 under the username KentStateU. The addition of Snapchat to the university’s social media reflects the growing popularity of the app among students, said Nicole Carlone, the social media community manager for Kent State’s University Communications and Marketing.

“My goal is to engage on a deeper level with our students and our prospective students,” Carlone said. “This platform, which is one of the most used platforms by our demographic, is a good way to do that. And I also think it will give us a little bit of a different interaction with our audiences.”

Students can send their own photos to the account, which Kent State will screenshot and upload to its story using an app called Snap Upload. All of the photos added to the account’s story go through Carlone first.

For now, Kent State’s Snapchat story operates with specific themes and campaigns announced on social media. Periodically, the story will incorporate photos from big events, like FlashFest, Welcome Weekend and Homecoming.

“For the first story, I asked students to snap us pictures of them showing Kent State pride,” Carlone said. “This included things like welcome letters, KSU apparel, students sitting in class and just anything showing Kent State.”

The second story included favorite photos sent to the account.

“So far, we have received a lot of submissions, and overall, the response has been great,” Carlone said. “The third story we posted included clips and photos from FlashFest. I posted 22 clips and each clip had an average of about 582 views.”

The announcement about Kent State’s jump to Snapchat left many students with mixed, but mostly positive emotions.

“I was definitely surprised that Kent got its own Snapchat,” said Angela Nunns, a senior accounting major. “I expected it to be boring pictures of campus that you always see on social media. But I saw it was used for FlashFest, so that was pretty cool.”

Amber Moore, a junior human development and family studies major, said when she went to Ohio University, it had a Snapchat account mainly focused around partying.

“The Snapchat photos and videos from parties are funny to watch and everything, but I think it would be cool if Kent’s Snapchat incorporated pictures from all around Kent, especially downtown,” Moore said.

Alexandria Bielinski, a freshman journalism major, said she wants to see photos of events taking place around campus on Kent State’s Snapchat.

“It would be cool to see photos of all the booths and stuff set up in the Student Center,” Bielinski said. “We could just go on Snapchat and see what is there so we know where to go if we are interested.”

Carlone said she hopes the Snapchat account continues to grow as time goes on.

“From a user perspective, Snapchat is so different from Instagram and Twitter because there is less pressure involved,” Carlone said. “No one has to worry about getting a specific number of likes or number of favorites. It’s more of a casual platform where everyone can just be themselves.”

Contact Julianne Calapa at [email protected].