Digital media is taking the world by storm and you know it. Social media and applications are constantly evolving to captivate and retain their users. Recent news has shown that traditional social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are experiencing a decline in popularity in the younger generation as they are adopting ephemeral messaging applications such as Snapchat. (Ever seen people around you opening their mouths and sticking out their tongues, switching faces or puking rainbows? Yes, they are using Snapchat.)
Heard of Snapchat?
Do you remember seeing that cute little ghost in yellow background in the app store’s top charts? That’s the Snapchat logo. Well, Snapchat is similar to WhatsApp but users communicate through photos and videos more frequently instead. One of the most unique things about Snapchat is the “self-destruction timer” feature after the photos have been viewed.
You’ve probably observed that there has been a growing interest in Snapchat, and for good reason— Snapchat boasts over 100 million daily active users and over 10 billion daily video views. Comparing it to traditional media applications, Facebook has 8 billion daily video views and YouTube roughly 4 billion, I would say that’s pretty impressive. Moreover, the instant popularity of Snapchat has captured the attention of Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg in 2011. Facebook reportedly tried to acquire Snapchat for $3 billion. However, one of the app’s cofounders declined the cash offer. Facebook later released a similar app (Slingshot), which failed.
Incorporate Snapchat in your Marketing Strategy.
Snapchat is one of the mainstream application nowadays and it is “absolutely loved” by the teenagers and young adults. Users are allowed to send a personalized message and speak in codes he/she understands. It has attained what advertising has been hungering for the past 100 years: one to one connections. Fresh content can be generated using pictures or 10-second video snaps that are self-destructed within a 24-hour timeframe.
This modified the way we exploit social media and redefined the way we watch videos – now vertically and mobile. Hence, this is a huge opportunity for marketers and advertisers as Snapchat allows brands to interact and connect with their audience in a private and individualised way.
- Huge Reach
Millennials make up a huge portion of Snapchat users. The application is tailored for mobile users and since the first language for the millennials is often mobile, the application is appealing and enticing to them. If you want to communicate and capture the attention of the Millennials, make sure that they are able to see you on Snapchat.
Snapchat provides live access to your brand’s events and activities. The popularity of Snapchat’s live stories is undoubtable, reaching a rough figure of 20 million people within 24hours. It offers your fans a “behind-the-scenes” look at the products your brand is working on, creates hot topics, buzz and anticipation around items you are about to launch.
- Less Costly Advertising
Snapchat is a social media powerhouse. The ability to create geofilters (users can add specific art and labels that are designed by anyone, and connected to a particular location to anyone) is a major key to any company’s viral marketing campaign. The cost per impression is cheaper by a huge margin as compared to YouTube and other platforms. Consider Gatorade as an example, who created an animated filter got 160 million impressions during the Superbowl.
A new “Discover” section was implemented that runs original branded snaps, where brands can also purchase 10-second, 2 cents-per-view video ads that run in between the snaps; a huge difference from the original, sky-rocket price of 15 cents-per-view. Thus, this is more affordable for smaller brands, with a huge reach.
The lack of metrics and analytic tools kept brands away from Snapchat. However, we can expect to see more companies jumping on the Snapchat bandwagon in the future as they are able to reach out to more millennials at a reasonable cost.
