Snapchat for Brands

While going through your social media news feed, you must have come across ghost photos being used by brands like Huffington Post, Mashable etc. The bad news is that these ghosts are here to stay for some time. The good news, though, is that your brand can now explore a new social media platform- Snapchat.

Okay, but, isn’t Snapchat for teens?

Well, millennials do account for more than half of Snapchat’s 200 million users. However, features such as Snapchat discover and stories have opened the floodgates for new user entry. We understand that ‘trends’ is one feature common across social media platforms. These trends, however, are based on user actions (hashtags, likes, shares, retweets, mentions etc.). In the recent past, there has been a sudden increase in the number of inorganic trends. What makes Snapchat unique is that it puts editors, writers and media houses in charge to broadcast an event in the form of a story. Want another reason to start using this platform? Indians constitute 10% of the total user base of Snapchat.

How does Snapchat Work?

For individuals, it’s simple. You take a snap and then, you can choose to share this snap with a few people from your list, or everyone. If you share it (as a story) with everyone, each person in the list will be notified about your story. This story remains ‘live’ for 24 hours. Your list can view this story as many times as they want in this span of 24 hours.

If, however, you’ve shared snaps with individuals, the snaps will be visible to them for only a specific period of time (not more than 10

sec). These individuals can replay this snap only once before it self-destructs. However, you can take screenshots of these snaps which send out a notification to the sender that their snap has been ‘captured’. Snapchat, as the name suggests, also gives you the option to chat with your friends – very similar to that on other social networks.

How my brand can use Snapchat?

We believe that your digital marketing efforts should be integrated. Nothing you do on any of your digital marketing platforms should be in isolation. Also, it’s important to understand that any new platform is first embraced by technological innovators and early adopters.

To target these innovators and early adopters, give them something new. Whether it’s a new product launch that gets them talking on other platforms (maybe with a hashtag), and subsequently launch that product on other channels – so that by the time you share this news with your fans, there’s ample buzz around it already

• Create great content for campaign teasers that gets people talking.
• You can even localize events by taking snaps of brand related cues and asking users to participate in your outlets/stores.
• Like with other social networking platforms, make sure that you humanize your brand – be a little playful and interesting.

Want to know something more about Snapchat and how your brand should use it? Drop in a line at hi@envigo.co.uk.