Snapchat doesn’t tend to be the first social media network people think of when it comes to business marketing. However, Snapchat have been concentrating on making the platform more business friendly for a while now and in August they launched the platform’s first global B2B campaign: “Meet the Snapchat generation”.
Chief marketing officer Kenny Mitchell said that the “Snapchat generation” are not defined by age, but by the unique mentality of the brand’s users, which he says sets it apart from other social media and messaging platforms.
Are Snapchatters Your Audience?
Well, they just might well be, even if you don’t target youngsters.
Mitchell says the the Snapchat generation are “a group of people who fundamentally believe in the power of visual communications in connecting with their close friends,” and that they are especially socially conscious. “They believe they have the power and responsibility to change the world,” he says.
Seventy percent of users like to be surrounded by different people, cultures, ideas and lifestyles, while 82% of users say they believe they have a personal responsibility to create the change they want to see in the world and 80% believe companies have a role to play in solving social issues.
While Snapchat is often associated with younger users with the majority of users being under 30 years of age, Mitchell said its older user base has been growing and a significant proportion of users over the age of 25 use Snapchat exclusively among the major social platforms, which would be a potentially attractive fact for brands.
According to Sprout Social, Snapchat users are predominantly in America, then France and India third. In the USA 22% of users earn more than $75,000 pa and 26% earn $30,000-74,999. Snapchat’s user base is evenly split between genders.
Why use Snapchat for Business?
Age and income are definitely major factors. In contrast to Facebook, for example, which tends to be used by an older crowd than most social platforms, Snapchat is more diverse and has a younger median age. However, it’s really down to the type of person you are selling to, whom you are targeting and your own brand ethics and values – not just whether they like using video more than, say, writing longform articles on LinkedIn or short form tweets on Twitter.
In addition Snapchat is also a relatively stable platform at the moment compared to its competitors. It’s major competitors are Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, who are all are facing challenges that are or could impact brands.
TikTok’s US operations could be acquired imminently by Microsoft from Chinese owner Bytedance after US president Donald Trump declared his intention to ban the app over security concerns.
Facebook and Instagram are rubbish for the visibility for brands and for SEO in general, and advertising isn’t always as successful as people assume. The Facebook empire also has serious issues with privacy, data usage, and with safeguarding that brand’s adverts don’t appear next to hate content. These issues have been highlighted by the Facebook Boycott this year, where Facebook was boycotted by a raft of major brands over its toleration of hate speech.
Snapchat’s campaign is not a direct response to these issues, but it’s definitely a point in its favour that Snapchat lacks the problematic aspect of its competitors.
Focus on Privacy Gets Thumbs Up
Privacy and freedom from being other people’s approval or judgement are built into Snapchat design and makes the platform very attractive to users. Usual social media elements like not really having a town square do not exist, there are no likes or comments, and content is deleted by default so there is no pressure to showcase and no judgement allowed on the content produced. The brand content platform is curated with trusted publishers, which helps prevent the mass spreading of harmful content or misinformation.
Snapchat Advertising
Snapchat’s most recent offering is Dynamic Product Ads. This is a free new service designed to make it easier for brands to set up business on Snapchat and showcase their products and services in a “professional layout, through customised ad formats that can be easily set up”, Snapchat said. This is significant as over 75% of users also use ecommerce regularly, so making it easier for them to purchase in-app is a smart move.
Advertisers can automatically create globally-served Snapchat adverts based on real-time product catalogues. These can contain many thousands of products served in multiple markets. Snapchat hopes it will save advertisers time, not only on the creative process but also on administration and allowing them to run “always-on”, measurable campaigns. Formats include Snap Ads, Story Ads and Collection Ads, and all can be created from a product catalogue.
Interested but not sure where to start? Give us a shout!
