By: Irangi Gamage
Snapchat. If you are not familiar with this word, then you are missing out on one of the greatest ways to promote your business. Snapchat is a social media application that allows you to send live pictures and videos that last up to 10 seconds and disappear from the viewer’s account after. Unless, of course you do ‘stories’. Stories in Snapchat allow you to send live videos or pictures through the app, which are visible to everyone in your contact list for 24 hours. All the features, including capturing videos and pictures, and the use of filters are available within the app and anything from external sources can’t be uploaded.
As mentioned on the Snapchat website, “Over 100 million people use Snapchat every day to Snap with family, watch Stories from friends, see events from around the world, and explore expertly-curated content from top publishers. Snapchatters watch over 10 billion videos per day, which is more than a 350% increase in the last year alone. In short, Snapchat is about great storytelling - our stories, and yours.”
Why Use Snapchat?
In a recent Edison Research paper, Snapchat has grown more in 1 year than Twitter has in 4 years. Snapchat has a higher usage than Twitter and LinkedIn. While Twitter and LinkedIn have been around for awhile now, these statistics say a lot about the success of Snapchat.
Familiarizing yourself with Snapchat, one of the most used social media platforms today, could give you an upperhand in the modernized marketing world. Snapchat works well for businesses that want to launch new products, are holding live events, or have constant promotions.
Here are some tips that will help you get started with Snapchat.
- Storytelling
- Production and Creativity
- Snippets
- Incentives
- Behind the Scenes
Storytelling is a creative way you can grab and hold someone’s attention. Like other social media, many Snapchat users tend to check their Snapchat at the most random times. This could be while they are waiting for a bus, while having their lunch, or maybe even while sitting through a boring lecture.
The restrain of 10 seconds per video on snapchat makes it challenging to organize your content wisely. Fortunately, you can string together a few videos and Snapchat will play them one after another as a story. Customers can skip through your videos or stop your story at any time if they are not interested. So the key is to make your material as creative and interesting as possible.
You only have a couple of seconds to grab your customer’s attention. Even if you have a number of snap videos tied together, your customers will not go through all your content if your story doesn’t appeal to them within the first few seconds. Therefore, it is extremely important to consider the production and quality of your video, and the creativity of your content. Titles, colours, filters, and transitions can all help your video. Since Snapchat is more of a casual social media platform, remember to keep the content light and easy going to tap into the age range of Snapchat users between 12 and 34 (Entrepreneur).
If you have upcoming events or product launches, Snapchat can be an additional promotional tool. Teasing your customers until the official launch of your product will keep the customers on edge, wanting to hear more. The small snippets will create a buzz amongst customers, which will increase the interest for your product or event.
According to Business Insider, about 58% of college students have stated they were more likely to buy from a company if they received coupons through snapchat.
Using incentives such as coupons and hosting contests on Snapchat is a great way to encourage your customers to buy from you. It is not only a great opportunity for you to retain your customers, it also creates an outlet to gain new customers.
Customers are not usually aware of the actions that are ongoing behind the scenes. Capturing some of these moments to show your customers, gives your business a chance to show off its personality. Especially if these behind the scenes show your business’s work ethic and a fun and responsible work culture. This helps in building a stronger brand image in your customers minds. It also allows your customers to get a VIP feel, if such content is only available through Snapchat to the customers that follow you, it could make it feel more exclusive and increase customer loyalty.
Additional Benefits
Through this real-time marketing, Snapchat helps you improve and strengthen your business’s brand image. The features and benefits of Snapchat are not limited to the ones mentioned above.
Snapchat allows you to do Snap ads, for a fee, create your own Snapchat sponsored lenses (filters), and Snapchat geofilters. So, if your business is targeted towards the age of Snapchat users, this small investment could bring you greater benefits.
Given that Snapchat is one of the most popular social media apps at the moment, taking advantage of it could benefit your business. When Snapping, make sure to have fun while maintaining the professionalism of your business. Always think from a customer’s perspective to see if you would enjoy the content you are showing them.
UpOnline’s blog focuses on the latest industry and insights on how to maximize your marketing efforts. Articles we post on our blog cover social media tools and news, many that relate to Snapchat. Give us a follow on Twitter for bi-weekly Snapchat tips.