How to use Snapchat as a Business Marketing Tool

As a digital marketer, it is important to keep up with new digital trends and knowing the behavior of active users on the major social media platforms; especially new up and coming ones.  Facebook is the biggest and most used social media platform with approximately 2 billion registered users. The sheer volume gives Facebook a head start as the most powerful social media platform for marketing purposes.

However, Digital Marketers should try to take advantage of new and growing social networking platforms and get a head start on how to leverage them for marketing purposes before others get into the game. This is especially due to the low cost to advertise on the platform and being one of the first to use it gives brands a first mover advantage. Snap chat is what we consider an up and coming platform; it is currently the fastest growing social networking tool out there.

Snapchat, created in 2011, allows users to send messages, take and share photos and videos. Pretty simple, but the reason Snapchat is so popular is because the posted content are only available for a limited time (24-hours) for users to see, then it gets deleted.

As of today, Snapchat has a booming usage of 187 million daily active users and is still growing. This makes the platform a real digital platform competitor. In 2013, Facebook offered $3 billion to purchase Snapchat, but the offer was turned down. This was a wise move as Snapchat went public last year and the platform is now valued around $20 billion. Not bad for a platform that started 7 years ago.

The average users spend around 30+ minutes per day on Snapchat. This beats the average time spent on Facebook and twitter, which is 10 minutes less. Marketers are becoming more curious and interested about the platform due to the rapid growth. Read on to find out more about the advertising opportunities on Snapchat.

Marketing on Snapchat

For marketers, the downside of using Snapchat is that it does not collect enough demographic information about the users. 71% of Snapchat users are under 34 years old.

Forms of Advertising

Ads that appear on the screens of users of Snapchat are the most looked ads besides television ads. In 2016, Taco bells made a success with advertising on Snapchat by breaking a record of around 200 million views in one day! According to Snapchat, the campaign generated 12.5 years’ worth of play in a day.

Snap Ads

Snap Ads takes a form of TV-like advertising. They are short advertising videos that appear between photos or video’s sent by friends. The Videos should be made in a creative and fun way as this has proven to increase watch time and engagement. The videos are 10 seconds of mobile videos ads and in these 10 seconds, creativity is everything. The ad should be like a 10 seconds pitch about why a user should visit your website or download your application. The cost for a Snap Ad starts at $3,000 per month.

GeoFilters

Snapchat uses GPS, that only works when users are using the app,to determine where they are located. The gathered data is then used for Snap Maps(which will be discussed later on) and other advertising purposes. Companies can now make their own Geofilters for events or specific locations. Geofilters are backgrounds or banners that can be added to pictures and videos. McDonalds was the first company to pay Snapchat to advertise on the platform. The Geofilters can now be used at almost any McDonald’s store. This advertising method is good if your target audience located is at one specific area.

Selfie filters or lenses

Businesses can now create their own selfie filter tool which can be used locally or nationwide to snap photos or record videos. This is the most effective way of marketing as users promote your brand for you by sharing it with their friends. The cost of this advertising tool has a starting price of a whopping $450,000 per day. The high price is due to the fact that more than 60 million users will see and interact with the filter.

Snap Maps

It is believed that Snapchat is creating a powerful location-based business ad tool. Snapchat introduced Snap Maps tool in 2017. The goal of this tool is to give users the ability to meet up with their friends in real life instead of on Snapchat. It is a map that allows you to see where friends are or locations of crowd sourced videos/photos shared from a specific area.

Snapchat as a Marketing tool | Final Thoughts

Every social networking platform has its own era. Some marketers are hesitant to try out new platforms for marketing purposes. They are faced with questions like; will it generate leads? How many people will engage? Is it going to be effective? Before you decide if Snapchat or any social media platform is a right for you to utilize, you need to map out a few factors such as your goals and what you have to offer, target audience and understanding every social media network and how it can help your business. At last, a strong social media strategy plan on how you will conduct the campaign is crucial. Now that you have a basic understanding of Snapchat, the real question is will you join the trend? Or will you watch it pass by.

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