How-Tu Tuesday: Snapchat For Business In 2016

Rene Looper

April 5th 2016

It was just over a year ago that we first posted about Snapchat on the Tuminds blog (read the post here). However, the staggering growth and surge in popularity that this particular social platform has experienced recently means it is time for a refresher…

With 1.55 billion monthly active users and daily views of a massive (no, gigantic) 7 billion, it has almost caught up with the leader of the social pack, Facebook, who at last count currently had 1.59 billion monthly active users. However, if Snapchat are to continue on this growth spurt, I’m sure they would have already surpassed Facebook by the time you finish reading this post.

From research conducted in America, it was highlighted that 77% of college students use Snapchat daily, and furthermore, 58% of these college students would be likely to purchase a brand’s product or service if they received a coupon on Snapchat. To sum up, the message is clear; if you’re not on Snapchat and college students/young people are part of your target market – GET ON SNAPCHAT.

Although the exponential growth is great for the platform and its users, it has left many marketers struggling to keep up and unsure of how they can not only have a presence on Snapchat, but also stand out from their competitors and use it to expand their brand awareness and following. So how can they achieve this…

Firstly it is important to understand the basics before anything else; Snapchat is a mobile photo-sharing app that allows users to take photos and short videos that remain viewable to users for 10 seconds, and after that the Snap disappears… never to be seen again. Expanding it’s services and keeping up with the demand for more, Snapchat added a number of features including live text, chat and video calls between contacts, which helped increase the large following of young people (aged 18-25) they have.

Now moving on to creating the content that will make you the Snapchat leader in your industry…

1. Tell A Story

Particularly with Snapchat, as opposed to any other major social platform, telling a story is key and the foundation to a being successful Snapchatter. All of the Snaps, whether it’s photos or videos, are saved (unless you choose for them not to be) to your “Story” with each clip following each other in chronological order. Your Story will last for 24 hours, and differing from a Snap you send to an individual, a Story can be viewed more than once… although the platform did bring in a feature allowing users to replay a snap sent to them, but this privilege can only be used one time in a day – so don’t go wasting it!

As Snaps last for only 10 seconds, it is imperative that you keep your content short and snappy and most importantly, engaging. The more creative you get with your Story, the longer people will stay viewing it, instead of clicking off to watch someone else they follow (most likely Kylie Jenner, who has the most users on Snapchat).

2. Tease Tease Tease

Snapchat is the ideal platform to tease new products you are launching and to get your followers excited for them and left wanting to know more. You can show sneak peaks of the new products or  demo the product in action and then ask for instant feedback. As the content will only be live for 24 hours, it allows for a certain level of buzz to be created and initiates conversation beyond the social platform about your new offering.

3. Go Behind The Scenes

People are instinctively very nosy and whether it be the latest celebrity they are obsessing over, their friends or the brands they are following, people generally want to know more, rarely ever less. Snapchat is a great way to take people behind the scenes in a fun and relaxed way to show people a side of the business they have most likely never seen before and it may give them a whole different perspective on the company and what it does. A good way to do this is to rotate the Snapchat account around a trusted group of employees who work across different departments and can give a true overview of the company… of course guidelines would have to be put in place first!

4. Drive Traffic In the Right Direction

Although a fact that is sometimes hard to grasp by many marketers, Snapchat can drive a large portion of traffic to both your website and physical store. As noted above, 58% of college students would buy from a company if they received some kind of promotional offer or discount via Snapchat. Businesses quite often use Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to host giveaways and competitions and Snapchat should be added to this list.

5. Contribute To The Wider Story

In addition to users’ individual Story, you can also add your 10 seconds of content to Stories being curated by Snapchat themselves. There is usually a Snapchat story for big cities, e.g. Edinburgh, London, New York and also special events taking place around the world such as the Oscars, The Olympics and Easter. By contributing to these Stories, you are accessing a much wider audience and leveraging your opportunity to gain more followers (potential customers) and increasing the brand’s visibility on the platform and beyond.