Social media is the rock star of marketing. As fast as technology changes marketing agents have to change strategy to keep up. Those who don’t embrace the new technology get left in the proverbial computer dust. Snapchat is one of the newer social media forums to be wrangled by marketers. More than 400 million snaps are sent each day. That is an enormous market to tap into and many brands are figuring out just how to do that.
The primary user of Snapchat is in the 13-25 year-old age group and that spread is growing daily. The question of the day is how do you market using Snapchat when your message vanishes in 10 seconds? Fortunately clever marketers have figured it out and Snapchat has introduced Discover and My Story to help people build a marketing relationship with followers.
DISCOVER & MY STORY
Discover is a special area of Snapchat where select companies are invited to advertise and set up shop. The selection is limited at this time with expectations of expansion. The glory hole lies in “My Stories.” Using this feature allows a company to create a following who can see the snaps in their Stories section thus avoiding the 10 second vanishing act of a snap.
The snaps held in the Story section are alive for 24 hours so it is a matter of being on the ball to use Snapchat as a promotion tool. Companies such as GE use Snapchat to promote big events such as National Engineers Week. The younger audience is a goal for GE to attract future employees. GE actively engages the youth to promote science and growth.
Audi jumped on the bandwagon last year using the NFL as a platform to launch their ad campaign using stock photos with hilarious captions. This campaign is being touted as the first successful Snapchat ad campaign opening doors for others to follow suit.
Intel, The Verge, Mashable and many more have embraced Snapchat technology to reach Snapchat users. Each has found unique ways to promote their own brands in a manner that isn’t intrusive like other social media but still able to capture the attention of Snapchat users.
GETTING FOLLOWERS
One of the major keys to successfully marketing on Snapchat is getting followers. Like other social media the more followers the more people who see your snaps and share them keeping them alive longer than the standard 10 seconds. Combined with Snapchat Stories, marketers are able to get their brand known.
METRICS
Snapchat allows for some metrics to measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns albeit in a crude form. There is an icon shaped like an eye that tells you how many people and who viewed your snap. As time progresses it is expected these metrics will improve.
The importance of Snapchat for promoting your brand is to get in the game now and keep at it. The number of users justifies the time and energy spent promoting a brand. Early entry will ensure a high survival rate and impact as time changes. Keeping your brand alive across social media is the new marketing strategy and Snapchat is a gold mine right now.
