Snapchat: A Leading Force in Social Media Marketing

It’s now time to discuss one of my favorite social media platforms, Snapchat. This app, started in 2011, offers social media marketers bountiful opportunities for direct engagement with their audiences by delivering lightening fast content and by giving users an all access pass behind the scenes of your brand. 

Many wildly popular advancements in social media technology have stemmed from Snapchat. As previously noted in my Instagram blog, Snapchat was influential in popularizing the stories feature that has now flourished on Instagram and Facebook. Snapchat has also been known as the driving force of geofilter technology, as well as, filters and face swapping. This social media platform engages with its users in ways that many others cannot.

Snapchat has been personally one of my favorite social media platforms because I can post even the most mundane things and not feel shameful about it. Within my own personal use, it always seemed that Facebook should be about life updates and keeping in contact with old friends, Instagram should be about posting captivating images, and Twitter should be about posting witty political messages. Snapchat afforded me the perfect opportunity to share pictures of my cat, Booty, and share the most random moments of my life.

As for social media marketers, Snapchat can go well beyond the mundane. With the use of geofilters, marketers can yield brand recognition quite simply and provide their targeted audience the opportunity to interact in real-time with your product. While Snapchat may not have the reach as say Instagram and Facebook, it is steadily growing. According to this medium.com article, 69 percent of Snapchat’s user base is between 18 and 24. While this shows that Snapchat is loved by a younger generation, it also can signify that they have a huge network of users and will continue to grow with these users. In fact, by 2020, at least a quarter of the entire mobile population in the U.S. will be projected to be using Snapchat. It is critical that marketers hop onto the Snapchat wagon to take part in this growing platform.

Like other social media platforms, Snapchat offers vast opportunities for marketing via influencers. Snapchat users can subscribe to their favorite influencers and get an inside look into their lives, the products they love, and the lifestyle they lead. This means that social media marketers can harness the power of influencers to advance their products, services, etc. One special opportunity that should be taken advantage of on Snapchat is the Snapchat Takeover! Social media marketers can actually give access to their snapchats and have influencers takeover their snap story for the day. To follow these takeovers, a Snapchat user must subscribe to that brand and the rest is pretty much history. Check out this article on how to have the successful Snapchat takeover!

While the popularity of Snapchat has steadily increased over the years, the app developers can tell you directly that making drastic changes to your platform’s interface can cause many issues. In early 2018, Snapchat caused a major stir when they separated professional content from content from your friends. Check out this metro.co.uk article to witness some of the backlash that Snapchat received from this update. Just recently, Snapchat has corrected this change and placed friend’s stories back to the same page as the professional content. Hopefully the damage is reversible, because this social media platform has always been driving force in social media technology and marketing.

Overall, Snapchat has always been a technological influencer and will continue to dominate younger generations. I would not be surprised if this app continues to be a great place for social media marketing. For a more comprehensive guide to Snapchatting your brand to success check out this businessnewsdaily.com article. If your brand is relevant to a younger audience, or you want to continue taking on the social media machine, definitely check out Snapchat for your social media marketing needs.