How Tu-Tuesdays – Snapchatting your business

You might have Snapchat downloaded on your phone but you’re probably unsure of how it works, and you most definitely won’t be using it as a marketing tool for your business. Snapchat is a photo and video sharing social media phone application. It allows for sharing instant visual content that only lasts for a limited time period (from 1 to 10 seconds).

Quick and visual platforms have gained popularity amongst young mobile users in recent years whilst Facebook witnessed a dramatic drop in activity from young users. Snaps have an incredible 70%-90% opening rate and the platform has over 200 million monthly active users – almost matching Twitter’s 288 million mobile users. Therefore, it is crucial to stop ignoring the power of the snap, especially if you have a young target audience. The quirky platform should not however substitute your other marketing efforts, but rather be added to the mix.

How Snapchat can be used to promote a business is the where the challenge lies. The content needs to be fresh and creative to fit in with the culture. These are some ways of how to snap for your business:

1. Communicate exclusive promotional codes: brands from the Co-op to Burger King have sent promotional codes exclusively on the platform, especially targeting students.
2. Live feed from events: as a snap has a limited life span, it makes streaming events simultaneously authentic for those who couldn’t attend. Some snap stories gets more views than episodes of some popular TV shows.
3. Showcase sneak peaks of new products or product lines.
4. Introduce new team members: including staff in your Snapchat content adds a glimpse of what happens behind-the-scences.
5. Recruitment. Yes, recruitment! Likeable Media have included Snapchat in their application process by encouraging applicants to send the company a creative snap about themselves.

Personally, I was reluctant to use Snapchat at first because I couldn’t navigate around the app and didn’t understand the buzz. However now that I am an active user, it is one of my favourite platforms. Tuminds has also recently joined Snapchat, so do follow our cake journeys on Snapchat – username: Tuminds