(This is a follow-up blog to our weekly #MagnetMarketers session with Jessika Phillips, Mike Gingerich, and special guest host Saba Sedighi!)
With over 100 million daily active users and 400 million snaps per day, Snapchat is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms. As you might already assume, 71 percent of Snapchat’s United States userbase fall into the 18 to 34 age range. However, even if your audience doesn’t fall in that demographic, Snapchat is becoming a vital part of global marketing strategies. We sat down for a live discussion with Snapchat user and expert Saba Sedighi to talk about the platform and to learn more about how to use Snapchat for business.
Saba Sedighi is a results driven Marketing Strategist and Content Creator. By utilizing her excellent communication skills, she has taken on an innovative approach towards social selling to connect brands with their audience. Saba consults with companies to help establish their social presence and grow an audience through creative cross-promotion strategies across video-centric platforms such as Snapchat and Periscope. In addition to her consulting work, she is the co-host of 3 live podcasts including Social545, CreativNation, and TechBits.
Why SnapChat? What’s the benefit for business?
When you are choosing a social media network, you are choosing where you are going to invest your social media network, both your resources and your time. Many times when you are making your decision, you’re going to want to go where everyone is talking about. These are places like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. These are all great, robust platforms, with a large audience. The problem is the ROI is not going to be the same in a matter of 6 months, especially when compared to a new network that has higher engagement. While there is not yet a large audience, you are engaging them more, which is more valuable and more human. When you are choosing a social medium platform to invest your businesses time in, you need to be think of where you can be more engaged and build more relationships.
Who is the target audience?
The audience on Snapchat now are millennials, and millennials are defined as between the ages of 18 to 25, however, they are not the only ones using the platform. While there might not be a whole bunch of people between the ages of 40 or 50, they are there, they’re just not dominating right now. That actually provides an opportunity, because if you get there first, you’ll have an advantage, versus waiting until everyone is already on the platform. Why wait until the market is ready?
What types of content can businesses post?
The whole point of Snapchat is that it’s not clean and proper, you’re creating as you go with 10-second micro snippets with photos or videos. You have access to video tools, geofilters, drawing, and more. It’s a very creative platform. You can do everything within Snapchat, so why would you choose a platform where you have to use external tools? All you have to do is push it into the market.
No platform can be used in a vacuum. There is no way you’re going to be able to make an impact on social media using only Facebook or only use Twitter. You have to choose a few platforms and use them complementary to each other and cross-promote. Snapchat is real time and allows you to really get to know people. In your social media strategy, you have to think in both the micro and macro level, and creating content consistently.
So, how does Snapchat work?
Basically, you can create content through photos or videos, and every piece of content is 10 seconds or less. If you are adding something to your story, it’s like you are adding a weaved film reel of the last 24 hours of your day, after which it will expire. There is no going back to edit. You can post to your own story, or, alternatively, you can also engage one on one with someone and send them a personal “snap,” which will be deleted after the person views it.
What you’re doing is creating a timeline throughout your day. The advantage to businesses is that you can create a storyline. It can really be hard to tell stories on Twitter and other platforms, but it’s very easy to tell a story on Snapchat. You can use tools to write text and layer it, use videos that can be sped up, slowed down, played backward, and you can use geofilters to create branded content or simply vlog your day. It keeps your audience engaged because there is a spectrum of ways to tell your story.
What tools are you using to measure metrics on Snapchat?
Impressions are done through your story (if you’ve sent a personal snap you can simply check if it was opened). In terms of measuring impressions, you can do this by simply seeing how many people are viewing your content. Retention is one of the biggest things on Snapchat. If you submit 10 stories and each story has less views, retention is not there. You’re not engaging your audience. There is currently no external online tool to measure your success.
You’ve mentioned geofilters, which are relatively new. Can you explain what it is and how they work?
Geofilters are a tool that allows you to tag either where you are, what time it is, temperature, and date. And now you’re able to do brand campaigns. Until two weeks ago, the only people who could use these geofilter brand campaigns where larger companies with large budgets. It was very inaccessible. As of two weeks ago you can now create custom geofilters. This means you are able to create personal geofilters for your brand or business. People in the geography that you determine can use your geofilter for their content. You can easily do this online, starting at 5 bucks. It’s a great way to locally target your audience, and custom geofilters allow you to see how many people saw your filter and how many people used it in their own content creation, either sent to someone or on their story.
How do they get started?
Begin by cross-promoting -- tell people you’re on Snapchat -- and start creating stories. Be consistent, and remember, if you're going to be on Snapchat your content has to be good. Use your creativity, and use the tools available to use. You can talk to other Snapchat users to get demographics. The most important thing is to engage. Ask them what they are thinking or for their feedback, and hold them accountable. Ask them to snap you back or to send a message/tweet at you. There are a lot of little actions you can do to make your content very effective. The most attractive thing about Snapchat it there is no vanity, no discoverability, and no algorithm. If they are following you, they want to see your content.
Add your business to Snapchat's directory here.
If you missed out on our #MagnetMarketers session and want to hear more of the conversation and the apps we love to use, replay it here. Join us next week on Tuesday at 4 p.m. EST on for our next session.
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