Why your business needs to embrace Snapchat marketing

Once considered a social platform dominated by college and university students, Snapchat is quickly becoming a crucial aspect of marketing strategies for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

With over 400 million “Snaps” shared each day by its active user base of around 100 million, it’s one of the fastest-growing networks around.

It’s no wonder, then, that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg offered to buy out the start-up business for $3 billion back in 2013 (and promptly got turned down).

WHAT DOES SNAPCHAT DO?

If you’re new to Snapchat, here’s a brief rundown of its appeal: it lets you share video and photos (or Snaps), whilst adding captions or doodles to anything you record.

Much like the concept of disappearing ink, Snaps self-destruct after a few seconds (1 to 10, to be precise). A “Story” is a Snap you can mass-send to fellow Snapchatters, and recipients can view it as many times as they like within 24 hours.

Because of its limited appeal, marketers need to make the most of every second they have. It’s worth noting that there are more than a billion views of Snapchat Stories every day.

At the beginning of the year, the “Discover” feature was launched. Although the feature doesn’t put your Discover stories directly onto a Snapchatter’s Stories stream, it gives brands the chance to have a permanent place on the service.

Tapping on a brand allows the user to view content you’ve shared, regardless of whether they are following you or not.

WHAT’S SNAPCHAT’S APPEAL TO YOUR BUSINESSES?

• The platform offers numerous features in order for your brand to have fun. For example, you can add filters, geofilters, emojis and music to really surprise and engage your audience whilst portraying your personality. Through this creativity, you can seriously increase brand awareness.

• Snapchat has a younger user base – 71% fall into the 18 to 34 age group – so if you’re looking to tap into this demographic, the platform is the perfect vehicle in which to do so.

• If you want to connect with Millennials, reaching out to them through their desired medium, rather than yours, will show you are listening to their wants.

• You’ve worked hard to build up your audience on other networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, so adding Snapchat marketing to your mix doesn’t mean you have to start from scratch in terms of building your fan base.

HOW CAN SNAPCHAT MARKETING ENGAGE YOUR BRAND’S TARGET AUDIENCE?

You may understand its appeal, but how can your business support its marketing goals through the use of Snapchat?

• Release a less-than-10-second sneak peek into a new service or product you know your audience will love. Fashion brand Michael Kors used the platform in order to showcase his latest collection before they hit the catwalk.

• Send out a custom coupon to bring users onto your ecommerce site or into your store. GrubHub, for example, offers a variety of deals, contests and promotions, and were the first brand to launch a “Snapchat scavenger hunt.”

• Take your audience behind-the-scenes to show your brand’s unique culture; whether it’s a staff party or company outing, it will add some personality and help engage a strong following.

• As with other social media platforms, partnering with influencers on Snapchat can help spread your brand’s reach.

Although Snapchat may not have made it onto your business radar until now, you may find that, with a bit of experimenting and creativity, your brand could be the new Snapchat guru.