The Brand Marketerʼs Guide to

Snapchat

INTRODUCTION......................................................3WHO?.....................................................................4WHY?......................................................................5THE BASICS.............................................................7FEATURES................................................................8TEXT EFFECTS..........................................................9SNAPCHAT DISCOVER.............................................10LANGUAGE............................................................11WHAT CAN YOUR BRAND DO ON SNAPCHAT?.....12BEHIND THE SCENES..............................................13COMPETITIONS......................................................15EVENTS..................................................................17BRAND RELEASES...................................................19AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION.....................................21TIPS AND TRICKS....................................................23INSPIRATION..........................................................25

CONTENTS

Snapchat is an app which was created by 3 Stanford students in early 2011. The app allows users to take photos and videos, add text and doodles and then send to a select list of friends. These images/videos self destruct after a particular length of time, depending on what you choose (1-10 seconds) or you can add the ʻsnapsʼ to your ʻStoryʼ, which allows multiple visuals to be uploaded in a chronological order and is viewable for 24 hours unless the user decides to delete it.

The release of Snapchat has sparked a monumental change in the way we interact online and thatʼs what makes the app so special - the content is fast-paced and is dealt with differently to images that youʼd see on any other social network. This creates a completely unique platform with a whole host of interesting and new techniques that you and your brand can take advantage of.

INTRODUCTION

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Something that makes Snapchat special is the appʼs demographics. It has a unique and typically hard to reach audience which makes it the perfect arena for brands to reach users that they wouldn't usually. The typical Snapchat user is between the ages of 13 and 25, which is a notoriously hard to reach age group, and 80% of the users are based in the US.

Itʼs rumoured that Snapchat is approaching 200 million users - which means itʼs steadily catching up to the big dogs such as Twitter or Instagram. The app oversees almost 400 million snaps sent every day, which demonstrates how popular Snapchat truly is.

A SNAPCHAT SNAPSHOT

-25% of British smartphone users use

Snapchat

-Only 1% of marketers use Snapchat

-1 billion Snapchat stories are viewed

every day

-Snapchat is worth a rumoured

$15billion

-Facebook reportedly offered to buy

Snapchat for £3bil

WHO?DEMOGRAPHICS

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WHY?If the demographics of Snapchat alone donʼt persuade you to embrace the app, then there are a few other reasons why your brand should get on board with Snapchat:

If you donʼt know by now, creativity is essential for success. Snapchat is a purely visual app and has so many creative features for you to play around with. If you want to show off how creative you are as a brand, Snapchat is the place to go!

CREATIVITY

BRANDINGOnly 1% of marketers are on Snapchat - so why not join the 1%? Being one of the few brands on Snapchat,youʼll become an influencer which will be good for you and your brand.

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As previously mentioned, Snapchat has a very niche audience which have been previously hard to target. If your brand is on Snapchat, you can reach a wider audience that you otherwise wouldn't have.

AUDIENCE

WHY?

ENGAGEMENTSnapchat is fun. Itʼs a place where interacting is easy, simple and entertaining - meaning users are more likely to engage with your brand!

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THE BASICS

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FEATURES

Once youʼve taken a photo, you can add filters to your images by swiping left or right on the image. There are a few different colour overlay options which can stylize your photos to your choosing. There are also a few other overlay options including the current time, speed, and temperature.

Geofilters are a really cool feature from Snapchat that allows you to share with your followers which location you are in. The feature allows users to unlock specific geofilters in an area, and you can access them in the same way you access the filters, by swiping left or right. Not every location has a geofilter image but they are becoming more and more popular in many areas.

FILTERS GEOFILTERS

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TEXT EFFECTS

To add text to your image, press anywhere on the screen after taking a photo.

To get bold text, press the ʻTʼ button after typing the words. To get centred bold text, press the ʻTʼ button once more.

To change the colour of your bold text, press the colour bar on the right hand side of the screen.

Use a combination of text and doodles to create fun and interesting snaps!

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DISCOVER

Snapchat Discover is a fairly new feature in Snapchat that is truly changing the way we consume news and content. Itʼs a section of Snapchat that is home to 11 large brands, who publish new content each day in a Snapchat friendly and easy-to-consume way. The brands are all very influential and range from Cosmopolitan Magazine to Sky News. Each day, the brands upload very visual based articles, and you can move on to the new articles by swiping left and right. Brands are paying big bucks to be placed in the Discover section, so although itʼs a great place for viewing content, itʼs not a very feasible option for many businesses. This is why itʼs great to embrace Snapchat as a place for communication and fun through the features that are accessible to us all.

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LANGUAGE

Throughout time, the ways in which we communicate with each other have continually evolved. Whether this is due to new technology, new languages or simply evolution - itʼs still happening and it can be argued that the more recent developments have been brought on through changes in social media. People are communicating faster than ever before. Content has to be quicker, information has to be passed with speed, and humour has completely changed to match the fast paced social environment. Platforms such as Vine and Snapchat have been a catalyst to these changes, so itʼs important that the way you communicate matches the platform and itʼs audience.

Emojis have been billed as the first truly global language. The heart emoji was actually the most popular ʻwordʼ of 2014. Snapchat is the perfect place to embrace this new ʻlanguageʼ. Emojis are very popular with the young, tech savvy Snapchat audience. Donʼt be afraid to tailor your content to the audience youʼll be hitting.

Your brand should use Snapchat to tell a story in a visual language. Tell your story through image, video and doodles to really engage your audience. Characters are limited in Snapchat so really use them to their potential - but let your visuals do the talking.

VISUAL STORYTELLING

EMOJIS

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So youʼve set up a Snapchat account and your brand is pumped and ready to get snapping. What can your brand do on Snapchat?

WHAT?

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Snapchat is the perfect platform for giving a glimpse into working life at your brand. Snapchat was created for the intended use of photo messaging between friends, and if your brand is using it, your audience will get a more genuine view of your company and its culture.

Social media is saturated with branded content. Itʼs everywhere we look, which means content needs to capture a userʼs attention quickly. With micro-content networks such as Vine and Instagram booming, itʼs no wonder Snapchat is proving so successful. Itʼs got micro-content down to a tee wit the quick, 10 second content that disappears once viewed. You canʼt get any more micro than that!

BEHIND THE SCENES

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WHO DID IT WELL?A brand thatʼs doing big things on Snapchat is the HBO television show Girls. The marketers at Girls have been using Snapchat to send out content to fans of the show, including behind-the-scenes at red carpet events, countdowns to upcoming episodes and also throwing back to old or particularly popular episodes.

The marketers behind Girls have also got the actresses and actors involved in the Snapchat strategy, and theyʼre often seen sending personalised Snapchat to fans and to their Story. This connects Girls and fans of the show in a completely unique way, unseen on platforms such as Twitter or Facebook. Check out the cast of the series Snapchatting whilst walking along the red-carpet, once again linking the brand with the audience on a more personal level.

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Social media is the perfect place for competitions. It can build your following, help you reach new potential clients and it works well with the immediacy of social media. And you canʼt get any more immediate than Snapchat, with itʼs disappearing photos and 24 hour stories, which makes it the dream platform for a killer competition. When you receive a snap, the username that the snap came from are saved in a chronological order within the app, meaning entries are easy to sift through and saved. Itʼs super easy for users to send in entries as sending a snap is fast and free, meaning more users are likely to enter.

COMPETITIONS

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WHO DID IT WELL?An example of a brand using Snapchat as a platform for a competition is GradIreland, a career and graduate blog based in Ireland. They announced their Snapchat competition on Twitter, and as theyʼre a student and graduate focused brand, Snapchat is home to the exact demographic they are targeting. Because of this, they created a Fresher Challenge, in which freshers had to complete a number of tasks and photograph them on Snapchat and send them to GradIreland for the chance to win a HP tablet.

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Snapchat is the perfect place to showcase an event that your brand is hosting. It can be used in a variety of ways for this. Firstly, you can snap the build up to your event. Make sure you snap interesting preparations, decisions and planning and include members of your team. People who are coming to your event will be interested in this context from the outset, but other followers may see the snaps and be intrigued by the event youʼre preparing for (which would then prompt them to buy tickets/sign up).

Use it during an event to record the fun throughout the day. People who attended the event will be interested to see the event through the eyes of your brand, and having a visual representation of the event will show those who didnʼt attend what they were missing.

EVENTS

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MTV is a very popular TV brand all about popular culture, music and fashion. They use Snapchat and have different accounts for different areas of their brand. MTVʼs main Snapchat account shows ʻbehind the scenesʼ snaps from events (including concerts and gigs) and sometimes the band/musician even takes over the Snapchat account and posts from there perspective. The content is always interesting and is especially good for showing behind the scenes of special events.

WHO DID IT WELL?

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Snapchat is a great place to announce flash sales and newly released discount codes. Snapchat has a very unique sense of urgency, so this works well with this type of content. It can give followers a sense of exclusivity and show your brandʼs appreciation for individual followers/customers.

BRAND RELEASES

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WHO DID IT WELL?A brand thatʼs renowned for being one of the pioneers of Snapchat marketing is 16 Handles, a US based frozen yogurt brand. They began using Snapchat to send out various discounts to anyone who sent them a selfie in one of their stores. Users would then be sent a discount code in a snap which they would have to not open until they reaches the cashier. The discount ranged from 1% - 100% off, so it was all a bit of luck how much money each customer saved. What really worked for 16 Handles was embracing the features of Snapchat fully in the campaign.

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Snapchat connects you and your fans on a more personal level than any other platform. Because the content is so fast paced on Snapchat, it means interactions between brands and followers is easier than ever. Brands have been taking advantage of some of Snapchatʼs more unusual features to involve their audience in brand decisions.

AUDIENCEPARTICIPATION

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Taco Bell are a brand that are notoriously great on Snapchat. They continuously post fun, on-brand images that really interest their followers. Something they do regularly on Snapchat is audience participation games/activities. You can see in this example that they asked users to screenshot which snap on their story they should go with (youʼre notified if someone screenshots your snap), and then whichever got the most votes (...screenshots) then that option would win. This is a fun example but they also have previously asked their Snapchat followers to vote on which drink flavour should be kept on the menu. Taco Bell also recently took to Snapchat to advertise a new job/internship in their digital marketing team.

WHO DID IT WELL?

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TIPS AND TRICKS

ANNOUNCE IT TO THE WORLDSnapchat is different to other networks in that people wonʼt come across your Snapchat account and add you. For users to add you as a friend they have to enter your user-name. Because of this, it is often difficult to build up a natural following. Thatʼs why itʼs important to use your other social channels to shout about your Snapchat! Cross promote on all your channels to increase the likelihood of people adding your snapchat.

USE A PENThis may sound a little silly but buying and using a stylus for your Snapchat images is a great idea. Not only will you be able to draw super intricate stuff, but youʼll be able to do it all from your iPhone and natively in Snapchat.

USE AN IPAD OR IPHONE 6This leads on from the next point, but if you use Snapchat on an iPad youʼll be able to get more creative with your drawing, due to the size of the screen you have to work with!

EXPERIMENTThe whole point of Snapchat is its destructive nature. This means that you can use your Snapchat as a platform for creative experimentation. Your content doesnʼt have to be incredibly high quality as it will be disappearing anyway. So go crazy, experiment and be as creative as you can be.

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TIPS AND TRICKS

UNLOCK SECRET COLOURSOnce youʼve taken a snap, youʼre given the opportunity to doodle on top of your image. Snapchat provide a colour slider, where you can select which colour you wish to doodle with. Black and white are not included in this palette however. To access black and white ʻpaintʼ colours, click on the slider an then drag your finger out to the top left hand corner of the whole screen. Here youʻll see that it is white. Whilst keeping your finger held onto the screen, move it down to the bottom right corner of the screen and youʼll see it changes from white to black with grey tones inbetween. Just take your finger off the screen when youʼve found the selection you want.

OVERLAY MULTIPLE FILTERSTo overlay multiple filters, take a photo and choose the first filter you want on your photo. With your finger still pressed on the image, swipe left or right again and youʼll notice the filter will stay on the image and the other filters will be added on top.

SUBMIT YOUR OWN GEOFILTERIf the area you live or work in doesn't have an existing geofilter, Snapchat actually gives users the option to submit their own artwork for the chance for it to be a featured in the app. To submit a design for a geofilter, just go on the Snapchat website and follow the intructions.

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INSPIRATIONBRANDS YOU SHOULD FOLLOW:

Taco Bell - tacobellMTV - MTV

General Electric - generalelectricMarketing Land - marketingland

Grub Hub - grubhubGirls the TV show - GirlsHBOGary Vaynerchuck - GaryVee

ASOS - asosLYNX -lynxeffectuk

McDonaldʼs - mcdonaldsMashable - mashable

Yahoo Style - yahoostyle16 Handles - love16handles

Heineken - heineken

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LINKHUMANS

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