Editorial credit: Ink Drop / Shutterstock.com
With 173 million daily users that send 400 million snaps every day, Snapchat is quite clearly an untapped social media platform that most businesses should include in their marketing plan.
If you’ve been holding off taking Snapchat seriously, you need to take the blinders off as soon as possible because Snapchat can actually help engage your followers and boost your brand’s visibility – you just need to use it the right way. Here are seven tips and tricks to use the app to your brand’s advantage.
1. Use Snapchat to Drive Traffic to Your Website
Although Snapchat was not really built to drive traffic to your website unlike like social media platforms such as Facebook or Instagram, it can still help drive traffic to your site. Keep in mind that Snapchat doesn’t allow you to include clickable links, so all you can really do is to direct your followers to your website URL – but since Snapchat doesn’t allow clickable links, you need to ensure that your URL is easy to remember for when they decide to use your link later.
A good way to engage your audience is to provide a useful tutorial in your Snapchat story, but don’t give everything away straight away – show just enough to whet their appetites and then tell your followers to visit the particular URL at the end of your story if they want to get more information.
Editorial credit: FashionStock.com / Shutterstock.com
2. Provide behind-the-scenes access to exclusive events
If you want to engage more people to your brand in Snapchat, then you need to take them on a journey with you.
I’m pretty sure your followers would love to see some behind-the-scenes footage of how your business operates on a day-to-day basis or footage of an exclusive VIP event your company went to because that will bring the action to them directly.
For example, high profile designers used New York Fashion Week to grow their Snapchat following by posting behind-the-scenes videos and photos of the event. Since these videos and photos were only available for a short period, their followers became glued to their Snapchat accounts because it made them feel as if they were part of the show.
Here’s an image that was taken from Michael Kors SnapChat story. Michael decided to increase his social media presence via Snapchat since Fashionistas following the New York Fashion Week were also using the app to cover the event.
Everlane is another excellent example of a fashion brand that’s making Snapchat a massive part of their online marketing strategy. They let their followers know in advance about new products and releases, and they also use Snapchat to take you behind the scenes inside their office. At one point Everlane even offered limited edition items to their customers via a “Secret Shop,” and it was only available on Snapchat at certain times.
Snapchat is definitely a big part of Everlane’s online marketing strategy, and it’s something most businesses can learn from.
3. Tap Influencers
It’s a highly known fact that using influencers to promote your brand is the quickest way of getting more people to follow and engage with you.
However, there’s the realistic fact that not everyone has a marketing budget to work with so tapping high-profile influencers is out of the question because it’s going to be too expensive. Therefore, your next best option is to draw B-grade or C-grade influencers because they’d be willing to promote your brand at a much lower price. B-grade or C-grade influencers aka “Micro-influencers” may not be as massive as the big guns in Snapchat with millions of followers, but they still should have a decent following that you can tap.
A great example of a popular brand using an influencer to increase their following in Snapchat was the Sour Patch Kids. Sour Patch Kids teamed up with social media star Logan Paul by asking him to take over their Snapchat account and by doing that, they also invited his more than half a million Twitter followers to follow their Snapchat account.
Digital Training Academy confirmed that Sour Patch Kids received 6.8 million Snapchat impressions and 120,000 new Snapchat followers through the campaign, so it’s safe to say that it was a successful campaign.
4. Offer Special Deals
If you’re selling a service or a product then why not use Snapchat to promote your exclusive deals?
You can promote your discounts and special promotions through Snapchat which in turn will engage your followers and at the same time enable your brand to gain new followers. You can create Snapchat stories highlighting your special deals which should encourage more people to follow your account.
Crunchwrap Sliders, for example, shared this 10-second snap with a special referral code so that they were able to track down how many people actually got their hands on their product.
5. Provide incentive to your loyal followers
A good marketing move would be to reward your loyal followers for following you so that they continue to engage with your brand.
A fun yet effective way to engage your audience is to have a hidden message targetting your followers hidden within your Snapchat Story. You can tell your followers that whoever caught the secret message and responded accordingly will get a prize – but then they have to know that only those who watch the story until the end will get the instructions on how to claim the prize.
You can even tell your followers to take a snap of themselves promoting your brand, and if they send you the snap, they’ll get a prize for their efforts. Keep in mind that you can use these photos on your social media accounts as proof that people are following your brand.
Here’s a good example taken from frozen yogurt chain 16 Handles’ Snapchat account. They offered an exclusive discount to their existing followers that can only be redeemed if they sent snaps eating their fro-yo. They gained new customers by highlighting exclusive times and store locations, and when customers snapped photos of themselves or their friends eating 16 Handles yogurt, they immediately received a coupon code for between 16% and 100% off.
GrubHub effectively used Snapchat by organizing an online scavenger hunt called Snaphunt. They asked their followers to post a snap to them and then they announced ten random winners every day, who received $50 in free takeout.
6. Assert your authority
Addressing a relevant issue in Snapchat may sound a bit too serious seeing that majority of its users are young people, but sometimes, it pays to be the voice of authority in this app.
Take for example soap brand Dove, they got 30 women to chat with psychologists and other ambassadors on Snapchat to share personal thoughts about self-esteem issues. It was a campaign that was aimed at boosting young women’s self-images. Overall it resulted in 75 conversations and a whopping 130,000 views!
In Conclusion
Snapchat has 173 million active daily users, so it definitely needs to be added to your marketing plan.
If you want to be successful in your marketing campaign using Snapchat, then you need to be innovative but at the same time, show some personality and have some fun. The more authentic you seem, the more people will follow you.