Many of you might be unclear on what Snapchat really is, or perhaps some of you use it yourselves. Snapchat is mainly a platform where you send a video or picture to someone, they see it once, and it disappears. It also has a messaging feature that disappears as soon as the receiver reads it. This of course exists to get singles in a lot of trouble, but the fan base is wide enough that perhaps this short form, without all the time to put together a perfect five paragraph newsletter, is a more sustainable starting place for you.

Where To Start

It may seem like snapchat is only for the younger users, but these young users aren’t so young that they don’t have money. For the right business, with the right demographic, this could be a gamechanger. Mostly, you just have to know what you’re doing. Surveys to see what platforms your followers are already on can get you further than you might expect. 

Do You Have The Right Audience? 

Before even reading this article, it’s worth considering if your audience is young or new adults. If they’re younger, it may be better to aim at them in a way their parents’ see, rather than one that disappears before anyone with money can see it. 

Conversely, you probably do not want an older demographic than this. If your demographic is, say, over 35, try something different. Generally facebook is good for the older demographic, but be sure to check for the ones you’re specifically marketing towards.

How Do I Find Followers In My Audience? 

A good way to do this is to give your username to followers on other social media platforms. If you don’t have any other platforms, this can get a bit harder, because your website isn’t as good of a marketer for this as other social media platforms, but you have to work with your infrastructures already in place. 

Can Three Seconds Really Matter? 

There of course are going to be people who say no. There’s a good reason for this no. Do people even get a product’s name in three seconds? They can, but if all your doing is flashing your logo at them, you’re doing it wrong. 

Three seconds can show them your style, your work habits, and even your product being used perfectly. And people are more likely to pay attention to you in three seconds than three minutes. It’s important to make sure that the meaning you’re trying to get across is especially clear since it cannot be studied for a long length of time. 

The Story

Three second snaps don’t exist in and of themselves. Not for a business, at least, who won’t be sending something to every person specifically. The reason you use this three second platform is the opportunity to add these snaps, and even videos, on your story. That will be a collection of photos and videos that the viewer can watch again and again: it doesn’t disappear after, screenshot or no screenshot. Anyone who is following you can see this story, but no one who is not, so it’s important to remember to match your awesome story with some engaged followers. 

These stories give the perfect opportunity to show your day to day life in the workplace. Many people are not just curious about what the shirts you sell look like, but how they get to looking like that, and how they get to them. You can include many pictures and videos in your story. 

You get to know who and how many people looked at your story, but that only comes up the first time they view it: you can’t see when people view it again. The same is true if you look at other people’s stories. Sometimes, taking the time to see some of your followers’ stories can make them feel important enough to look at yours back. 

Once you have a story, you can change it at any time, but you are able to keep some of the story and change the rest of it if that is what you want to do. 

What To Put In The Story

The best thing on snapchat is personality. If they wanted advertisements they’d watch commercials. Snapchat is meant to be forming friendships and keeping each other up to date— up to moment, actually. Don’t post pictures that are weeks or months old. Don’t take pictures of your logo on the store front, but your coworkers wedding videos or just how messy a desk is after a fourteen hour shift. These are the things that make you interesting, and snapchat is all about interesting. 

Can I Use My Phone’s Camera To Take Photos? 

Yes! Absolutely! This is what Snapchat is all about. It makes it feel real. That being said, you should have a high quality phone and be aware that anyone can see this picture. This means if it’s blurry, dark, or even just embarrassing, this probably isn’t the place for it. People can screenshot the screen.

What’s Better: Videos or Pictures?

This depends on what you want to get across. If you want people to watch your videos, you have to know they really care enough to take the time to do that. Some people are more likely to pay attention to pictures than videos. 

However, what better way to humanize you then get you talking? Assuming, of course, you don’t sound too pretentious or annoying. If someone does speak in the video, make sure they are the type of person your target audience wants to hear from. 

Should You Hire Someone To Manage Your Snapchat?

The answer to these, and many other types of similar questions is maybe. With Snapchat meaning to seem personal and immediate, whoever has access to your snapchat should know as much as possible about your company, your employees, and your target audience. Perhaps you already have someone in charge of your social media presence, and if so it can be easy to tack them onto this. 

Do make sure they or someone else is taking quality photos: just because someone can write up twitter posts doesn’t mean their pictures are good enough for Snapchat. It also doesn’t mean they aren’t. Mainly, just vet the person carefully, like you would for any other social media. 

Snapchat Ads

Yes, snapchat has ads. What platform doesn’t nowadays, right? This allows you to have audio play automatically when your ad is on, and generally a video or picture goes on with it. If you have the right setup, snapchat ads can be a game you invite them to play. There are a lot of options, and the thing to remember is to always have some sort of call to action. This can also help get you followers if you do not have other easy ways to get them. 

Influencers

Just like most other social media platforms, snapchat has influencers. Sometimes these are people from other platforms that are also on snapchat. This is especially true of Instagram, as they are both mainly pictures, and people go to both to look at others.

So how do you relate to influencers? In the perfect world, you would work together, but this can be hard if you have no in to any of them, or don’t have the money to make it worth their while. The good thing about snapchat is people seem like they want to see who they know more than the stories of random influencers.

How Do You Know If It’s Working? 

It can be hard to tell whether or not these are working. Perhaps you’re getting views but no sales. Perhaps you can’t tell what sales come from Snapchat. Perhaps this all makes you feel majorly out of your league.

One way to tell if people are actually going on your site through it is to put in the QR code either in your ad, story, or somewhere else in the snaps. This works best if you can convince people to go through the QR to your site rather than googling it so that you can see who all is using it. This is something you would have to go outside of Snapchat to track. 

Some people also ask a few questions when people are purchasing them, signing up for the newsletter, or otherwise becoming involved, and one of the staple questions is where did you hear about us. This can help you get all your social media sites in order. 

Some Final Thoughts

It is better to do the sites that work well for you rather than all sites ever. This can help you decide which social media sites are a good fit for you, but also it is better to do a few things very well then post on all social media sites mediocrely. Perhaps snapchat is right for you and perhaps it is not, but it is always out there as an option, and we will always be there to help you along.