It’s Going Down in the
DM
Snapchat and its unique marketing advantages
for Businesses
by Rasheedah Gyan-Apenteng
napchat
is a photo-sharing service in which the photos you share, called snaps, disappear
in
seconds. Moments after opening snaps users can
no longer access them. The
images are deleted from the company’s servers.
Diverging from other social media sites,
Snapchat
has a simple sign up process that uses your telephone contacts instead of other
networks. It creates a different, more intimate kind of social network not
offered anywhere else.
Some distinguishing features of the service are that you can
draw on and caption any photo, and most vital, you can set how long (1 – 10 seconds)
your image can be viewed by the recipient. The app notifies the sender when the
recipient has opened a snap, so that you know whether it was received.
There are no profiles to mention, or walls to post on.
However, the app does provide users with a story that can be edited and
modified at will, which is comprised of an activity score based on your usage
of the app, three ‘best friends’ with whom you communicate most within the app,
and a couple of pictures or videos, all of which can be viewed by any of your
contacts.
Snapchat
stories, which last only 24 hours, are a string of snaps used to create a
video narrative using the apps native tools and features which include filters,
geofilters, text, emojis, music, and more – all from within the platform.
Advantages
of Snapchat? According to
Business
Insider, over 71% of Snapchat users in the US are under 34, including 45% between the ages of 18 and 24, which makes the app the social network with the youngest audience, far ahead of its nearest competitors Vine and Tumblr.
The
ephemeral nature of Snapchat posts forces users to focus on the message and react immediately. What all of this means in terms of marketing is that sending a snap to someone is an invitation to a largely visual conversation.
The service is a reaction to the saturation of social networking
and the dominant interaction modes where big data, behavioral targeting, and
the need to record every little thing – reigns supreme.
Snapchat has shown remarkable growth since its launch in September
of 2011 and has tapped into a deep desire among younger internet users for
activity that doesn’t have to be entered in the global logbook in the cloud. Kids,
and increasingly, adults – want a space to play and experiment without
everybody knowing about it.
Evan Siegel, one of the company’s co-founders, said about
the app,
“We’re building a photo app that doesn’t conform to
unrealistic notions of beauty or perfection, but rather creates a space to be
funny, honest, or whatever else you might feel like at the moment you take and
share a snap.”
Businesses can use Snapchat to provide access to live events,
deliver private content; offer contests, perks and promotions; take people
behind the curtain; and partner with influencers, spreading brand awareness and
reach. A skilled influencer can create spectacular content that can further
enhance your brand voice and personality.
In 2015, Snapchat became the third most popular social media
platform among millennials. The company now boasts over 100 million active
daily users and is valued at 12 billion dollars. Some of the most notable
Snapchat
campaigns of 2015 included:
- Sphero Star Wars influencer campaign (BB-8 droid sold out in
a matter of hours)
- Terminator Social Cross-Promotion, leading up to the
premiere of “Terminator: Genisys (more than 2,500 shares and 54,000 likes on
Facebook)
- 2015 VMA Celebrity Story, ( 12 million views on Snapchat)
- iHeart
Radio – Festival Buzz (340 million Snapchat impressions in just 2 days).
Innovative campaigns can showcase brand personality and
create a two-way communication between the brand and customers. Snapchat
success lies in a brands ability to capture user-generated content while
increasing brand loyalty, which is why I think that that this emergent social
media platform is a great tool for creative business marketing.
