Snapchat is one of the fastest growing social media services on the web. It is a multimedia sharing service that shares that media for a limited time before it is automatically deleted. It is hugely popular with millennials and since they are the drivers behind the acceptance in new technology Snapchat is a platform a business owner cannot afford to ignore.
Snapchat boasts over 100 million daily users but few businesses have a presence there, only about 2% of the businesses that have Facebook pages have a Snapchat account. This presents an opportunity for not only your business to expand its presence with a new audience but to have that audience potentially all to yourself. Your posts, or snaps, while they will disappear after viewing will remain available on your page until they are viewed. Considering that most content is time sensitive that means that your visitors will only be seeing the freshest content.
There are all kinds of things that you can include in your snaps. From what you do, to behind the scenes access, to tutorials or your product or services in action you really can’t go wrong. Your customers may also enjoy seeing an exclusive preview about something that is about to be introduced or an upcoming event. Content should be memorable and help to build your brand all the while all the while not being faceless. Share stories, after all millennials love to hear personal stories. You can also ask for snaps of people using your products. You can draw on your photos to show creativity or use a series of photos to show a story that can promote your business.
While replying to snaps is not going to be a viable way of engaging with your customers creating a call to action, like having your customers send a screenshot of one of your snaps or asking them to visit your website, is a viable and measurable way of engaging them. Rewards can be offered like discount codes so that your viewers get something out of it and will keep coming back for more. This can help build a larger following as Snapchat does not use hashtags or other traditional means for reaching others. Placing a notification on other social media platforms that you are now on Snapchat can bring followers over.
A good way of building a following is to feature other user’s snaps. Many of them are writing their own content and when their friends see your name when they interact with you they may be likely to follow suit. Partnering with an influential user may also be of benefit as they can readily reach far more Snapchat users then you can right off the bat. This user should have the same interests as your business so this may not be a path for everyone.