You might think of Snapchat as only for teen girls who are sending pictures to their friends, but you’d be completely incorrect. While the original audience for the platform was teenagers who didn’t want their messages to stay around or be captured or reproduced, that audience has expanded into the key 25-34 demographic. This means that businesses are also showing up on Snapchat to showcase their businesses and engage fans.
Rocking your Snapchat account requires different marketing strategies than other social media accounts. Here’s how businesses are killing it on Snapchat. See how your business can rock this, too.
Be Authentic
The best businesses on Snapchat know that the platform isn’t about being polished and perfected. Remember that some of the most popular filters on Snapchat involve distorting faces and voices into weird, funhouse mirror images. No one is on Snapchat to provide a magazine-ready photo shoot.
Make It Work: Leave Instagram filters and Pinterest framing behind. Focus on giving customers a behind-the-scenes feel and a strong sense that they are getting to see a special side of your company by following you on Snapchat. Be a little silly, a little fun, and a little more relaxed than your more professional social media accounts.
Plaster Your Instagram On Other Social Media Platforms
One reason Snapchat stays so private is that you have to know a user’s exact phone number or screen name to follow them on the platform. On Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, you can just search a company’s name and find their business account, which makes it a lot easier to get followers.
On the other hand, however, the other social media platforms are notorious for having followers who don’t really interact with the brand at all.
Improve Your Follower Count: Plaster your account information all over your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram profiles so that your current followers can find you there. If they use and enjoy Snapchat, you’ll start seeing those crucial snaps back.
Focus On Today
Don’t worry about what your business is doing tomorrow or next month; tell your followers what you’re doing today, right now. If you’re hosting an event, take them behind the scenes. If you’re working on a new recipe, take them into the kitchen. If you’ve got too much inventory, have a flash sale to move through it.
Snapchat Doesn’t Care About Yesterday: Your followers on Snapchat don’t care about your company’s history or your last big achievement; they want to know what you’re doing today, and how you’ll help solve their problem right now.
Creating Snapchat filters can help businesses show their customers that they are relevant today, here and now. Encourage them to use your filters to snap their friends, and reward them for people who snap them back and follow the company.
Keep It PG
Technically, you have to be 13 to use Snapchat. Realistically, many parents give their kids Snapchat on their old phones much earlier than that. Snapchat, therefore, is absolutely not the place for a business to be risqué, even if you’re a brand that targets adults.
This is generally true for all online marketing, however; kids and adults are often served the same ads, and more and more kids are browsing the internet independently. To avoid angry parents and startled kids, it’s better to just avoid off-color jokes and humor.
Choose Your Message: If you really feel like your brand can’t be sold without off-color humor, then you need to monitor your followers as carefully as possible, but for all other brands, it’s best to keep things Disney-appropriate and avoid upsetting kids or parents.
Offer Rewards For Sticking Around
Facebook tends to be a great place to let people know what’s up and coming for your business, Instagram is all about how great your business looks, and Twitter is about what your business is commenting on. Snapchat is about immediate rewards and instant responses. Businesses that harness that desire for instantaneous feedback, businesses can keep their followers around, engaged, and opening snaps.
Find The Right Reward: Companies have found a few different tactics that are successful. You can make a story of several snaps and short videos, then have a coupon code available for those who watch all the way through. You can advertise flash sales that reward customers who are already in your store.
Or you could send customers on a scavenger hunt through the store, with a special discount if they find a particular hidden item, for example.
Using Snapchat to benefit your business can take a tiny bit of getting used to, but it’s incredibly worthwhile.
