Snapchat: Storifying Your Brand

It seems that with each new year comes a new big boom in social media marketing. Last year, the marketing world was engulfed with real-time advertising induced from the famous Oreo Super Bowl tweet.

This real time advertising phenomena created a storm of over saturation and under satisfaction, and left many marketing managers losing their hair trying to latch on to every social trend they could. This became a tiring endeavor and not as effective as once imagined.

This year’s big boom has been Snapchat, a peer-to-peer photo/video messaging application that allows its users to temporarily share pictures and videos.  Many brands were quick to follow the gust of Snapchat trendiness and a few quickly found success, including Taco Bell, Mashable, Sour Patch Kids, and GE.

These brands were doing something different than many other brands on Snapchat, they found a way to stick out and connect with their audience. A more unique persona of their brand than ever before was created. They found the secret.

The secret to winning the Snapchat brand war is to captivate your audience’s attention right away, and hold that attention when you get it. Simply snapping sporadic pictures will not entice your followers to interact or identify with your brand. However, by fully utilizing the story feature on Snapchat, you can hit your whole audience at once. Furthermore, by following a few useful tips we can better utilize this neat new marketing vehicle.

How to make the ultimate Snapchat story:

• Do it All at Once: Upload all of your story at the same time, make it as seamless of an upload transition as you can so we can maximize on the attention of the user while we have it! After all, how long do we really have a person’s attention for anymore?
• Create a Story: Go on an adventure with your brand, its products, or its employees and share it with your audience. Use clean, crisp images. Utilize the video feature to create a better story with sounds and voice overs. With nearly 80% of Snapchat’s user base below the age of 25 – it is essential to buy in to the immediate satisfaction mindset of our younger audiences.
• Experiment with Animation: Use the video feature and draw on your snaps to practice some animation techniques.
• Use Filters: Don’t be afraid to apply some filters – often they truly can enhance your story just by simply highlighting or low-lighting some aspects.
• Take Notes: Follow the big players in the game, and take note of some of their clever Snapchat practices. Spark some internal conversation and determine how you could utilize some similar techniques.

Here are a few brand stories you can tell your audience:

• A day in the life of one of an employee.
• Invite a social media influencer out to your HQ and take a tour with them – record the experience.
• Show how a product gets made – from start to finish.
• Anytime your brand goes to a festival, exhibit show, or large event that your audience might find interesting – share it.
• Releasing a new product promo.
• Live contests.
• Your company’s founding story.
• Bring out a celebrity and have them do a fun promo with you (like GE and Bill Nye)

To storify one’s brand properly grants the opportunity to give the ultimate brand experience. You have the ability to showcase your brand in the personalized, unique interaction that every marketing department dreams of. You can show your brand’s products up close and personal, users of your products enjoying the benefits, or just your team hard at work. Whatever you choose to show off – you’re going to need some followers to share it with.

Quick guide to getting Snapchat followers:

• Teasing your Snapchats. Take a screenshot of a good snapchat your brand put out and share that photo on your brand’s Instagram account (include the @username in there too). Then, share that same photo to Facebook and Twitter.
• Play with the unique ID. There’s a cool new feature on Snapchat that allows a user to scan the yellow ghost image on the main menu, also known as the person’s unique ID, and follow them from that.
• LOPA – Leveraging Other People’s Audiences. Invite a social media influencer out to your company’s HQ and show them around the place. Share that experience on your brand’s social media and encourage your guest(s) to do the same. If you get the right people this could be huge!
• Introduce some Giveaways.  Have special snapchat contests held on right on Snapchat. You’d be amazed at the furthered connection your brand makes by having a real live person video recorded on a snapchat sharing a giveaway than the small connection made through text and image on Twitter and Facebook.

All in all, Snapchat has the ability to be the most personalized marketing vehicle ever. By presenting our advertisements and allowing our audience the choice to view it or not we eliminate any cognitive dissonance associated with advertisements. Snapchat has some serious power, it’s time to get your brand on board!