Our friends over at Firebrand Group just came out with a new free ebook on Snapchat called the Marketer’s Guide to Snapchat.
If your brand is just getting started on Snapchat, thinking about jumping in, or just wants to reaffirm what you already have going on this young platform, this ebook is a great resource.
First, a look at Snapchat by the numbers
A few of the stats that Firebrand quoted in the ebook were really helpful in understanding where Snapchat is as a platform.
Snapchat currently has over 200 million monthly active users (or MAUs). Compare that to Twitter with 316 million MAUs and Instagram with 300 million MAUs and we see Snapchat is clearly becoming a massive platform for social marketers to consider.
70% of Snapchat users are women. That makes Snapchat only 2nd to Pinterest (79% female) when it comes to female user gender trends on major social networks.
18% of US social media users are on Snapchat and 30% of millennial internet users access regularly.
Snapchat users share more photos per second (~9k) than any other messaging services and photo sharing platforms including Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Flickr.
Trying to attract Millennials? Snapchat should be your go to marketing tool. Share photos and videos on the go. That is what users are there for. Understanding Snapchat as the middle part of life
3 Snapchat Marketing Opportunities
I’ve pulled out 3 Snapchat opportunities for your business from the ebook below.
1. Create unpolished content
One of the brands Firebrand interviewed for this ebook was 16 Handles. They have always been an early adopters of new social networks and have been active on Snapchat since 2013.
Your fans want you to be fun and authentic [on Snapchat]. It’s okay if the message isn’t polished – that’s the whole point! — Lara Nicotra, 16 Handles
This “unpolished” mindset on Snapchat is something important for brands to consider. Waiting for the right moment or sending all your creative through a design team are not ideal habits for Snapchat content.
People share stuff on Snapchat that might never make it to the cutting room floor or Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. They take random photos, draw silly pictures, and – in general – capture the details of their life that tell you more than a Facebook highlight reel.
Brands can do this too. And those unpolished moments have the potential to create big loyalty and engagement.
2. Provide exclusive, rarely seen content
Let’s build on the idea of offering the “unpolished” style of content and think more about the subject of your content.
Another brand interviewed by Firebrand was is fashion lifestyle blog Refinery29.
“Snapchat allows you to experience something that feels exclusive and inaccessible in a really accessible way… it disappears after 24 hours, so you sort of get a clean slate and can do anything you think is working and resonating with your audience.” — Neha Gandhi, Refinery29
There are two ways to think about this.
The nature of Snapchat as a channel is behind the scenes and exclusive content. The photos, videos, and art users share on Snapchat is not organic on other social channels.
If brands want to fit in on Snapchat they would be well served to try and capture their own behind the scenes content.
Secondly, Snapchat users have a lot of content to engage. If you are sharing the same old content that they see on Facebook and Instagram already, there is less of a reason for them to keep coming back and choosing to view your brand’s content.
The nature of Snapchat’s user interface is not a stream, but a list of options to click on. They do have to CHOOSE to see your content.
And, beyond that, they have to choose to keep watching your content. Like a video. So it needs to be unique. As Neha say, try to help your fans “experience something that feels exclusive and inaccessible.”
3. Partner with influencers
I’m really psyched that Firebrand also reached out to our friends over at Delmondo who specialize in connecting brands with influencers on platforms like Snapchat.
Here is an excerpt from the ebook:
“Headphone maker JBL is an example of a brand that has gotten creative with its use of Snapchat. The brand commissioned Snapchat marketing firm Delmondo to identify Snapchat tastemakers to share messages with their followers during the NBA All-Star Game weekend. An influencer campaign in the same vein costs as little as $50,000, and has the potential to generate hundreds of thousands of views.”
Catch emgarber on Snapchat as he snaps his #NBAAllStarNYC weekend with us! What could be next? #JBLAllStar pic.twitter.com/TfXgrjrB3X
— JBL (@JBLaudio) February 15, 2015
Influencers on Snapchat afford a brand two very important benefits:
- Audience. If you want to gain followers and fans, paying to work with influencers or partnering with them on some level is a shortcut to building that audience.
- Platform Education. Secondarily, working with an influencer or group of influencers can do wonders for learning what works on a platform, what doesn’t work, and the intricacies of how that social network lives and breathes.
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