When Snapchat first started to gain popularity in 2013, many marketers thought it was best left to their 17 year old nieces while they focused on social giants like Twitter and Facebook.

Fast-forward 3 years and the Snapchat app now reaches over 150 million people every day, and those people watch – wait for it – 10 billion videos daily. 10 billion. Dang.

With stats like these it’s become hard for businesses to ignore Snapchat, and when they  expanded their advertising options in June 2016 it became nearly impossible.

For a long time the Snapchat marketing options didn’t really seem all that relevant to our brand (we’re B2B and Snapchat is more suited to B2C marketing) and so we didn’t take much of an interest, but recently we’ve started looking into it and – we’ve got to admit – we see great potential.

Turns out there’s a reason big brands have jumped on the Snapchat wagon, and we’re thinking of following suit! Here are some of reasons we (and millions of others) are looking into using Snapchat for our business.

What is Snapchat?

If you’re not already aware, Snapchat is a social media messaging app that allows you to take, edit and send fun pictures and videos (called ‘snaps’) to friends. You can also add the pictures and videos to your ‘story’ – which is a collection of your snaps that can be viewed by your snapchat friends for 24 hours.

Probably the coolest thing about Snapchat are the editing options which allow you to add text and doodles to the images you take and – famously – add hilarious filters and lenses to your selfies.

Snapchat For Your Business?

Snapchat began as a platform for individuals but (like all other platforms) as it grew, brands and advertisers started getting involved. Now, Snapchat provides an interesting platform for businesses to share their brand messages, not only as advertisers, but also as users.

Here are a few ways your business might be interested in using Snapchat.

Build Brand Intimacy

Snapchat is a much more intimate channel than many of the others as it provides a more ‘authentic’ view of your brand or company. On Snapchat it’s not just about the beauty of the shot or the newsworthiness of the post, it’s also about a real-time update that lets people behind the curtain and doesn’t feel like marketing.

Many of the major brands use Snapchat to offer behind-the-scenes view of their events/day-to-day operations and audiences are loving it. Fashion brands like Forever21 are killing it at this. They make the viewer feel part of the brand and this kind of behaviour really builds brand intimacy and loyalty.

As an added benefit it also lets people know how great your company is to work for and can assist with employee acquisitions.

Share Promotions:

Snapchat is a great channel on which to share promotions with your loyal followers. As it’s a more intimate channel, your followers feel as though they’re getting exclusive deals and that’s exciting.

Brands like Domino’s Australia have had great success in building their follower base through ‘secret’ Snapchat discounts and special offers.

Advertise:

Snapchat recently launched a bunch of new Snapchat advertising features, including a rollout of Snap Ads Between Stories; allowing brands to reach audiences in a new way.

The numbers speak for themselves. When comparing Snapchat ads to those on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, Snapchat ads got twice the visual attention of Facebook and 1.5 x more than Instagram. They were also 1.3 times more effective than YouTube. Pretty impressive.

Boost Customer Engagement:

Every marketer knows that getting audience members to engage with your brand is a great way to get remembered.

To this end, snapchat offers paid custom Geofilters that businesses can take advantage of. Geofilters are basically small graphics that appear on the snap of a person who uses the Snapchat app in your location.

For example, if you own a beach bar you could start a geofilter that allows your customers to add your custom palm tree graphics to their snaps when they’re at your specific location. This entices customers to snap your brand and turns your customers into brand ambassadors.

Sponsored Lenses are another great way of increasing engagement (although they’re quite pricey).

Sponsored Lenses offer users the opportunity to play with an interactive lens created by your brand. For example, McDonald’s Australia created a filter that turned your face into a giant burger.

A more exciting example was done by the U.S sports drink, Gatorade. They created a lens that imitates the famous ‘Gatorade showers’ that football coaches get when their team wins.

This particular lens received more than 160 million views (and it only ran in a select few countries)  and Gatorade reported that it resulted in an eight point increase in purchase intent.

With new advertising opportunities like these (and, indeed, just the growth of Snapchat in general), it no mystery why brands are jumping on the snapchat wagon.

Whether you want to use Snapchat to let users behind the scenes, increase brand loyalty, share your awesome company culture or take advantage of the many new advertising options, Snapchat certainly seems to have a lot to offer businesses. We’re thinking of getting our feet wet, are you?

Here are some resources we’ve been reading:

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/snapchat-best-brands#sm.001qqw77tczqe51109v14w4z1tblr

https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/10-ways-to-use-snapchat-for-business/

https://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2016/04/ways-small-businesses-use-snapchat/

https://contently.com/strategist/2016/03/18/awesome-snapchat-marketing-case-studies/

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/270663

 

Tags: business, snapchat, social