Mason Ross“Let me take a selfie!” This phrase was once, and unfortunately it’s still being used for the media app Snapchat. Ah, yes, Snapchat, the app where we can communicate with our friends through pictures, for ten seconds. Snapchat began as the place where you could send that perfect selfie to your crush hoping they would snap you back. But now, it’s more than that. Now, Snapchat is a new way corporations market to their consumers. In my last blog, I talked about how companies were creating vlogs on YouTube, and how that was a new way to reach their customers. Now, companies are going with a younger new media app, Snapchat. I am going to tell you why businesses should be using Snapchat to target their customers through. Why should companies make the transition to Snapchat? Well, they have sustained an identity on being trendy and different. This is why they have millions of users, and why those users keep coming back. With Snapchat being so trendy, that there are numerous ways companies can reach their audience, such as, Geofilters, Snapchat stories, influencers, geotags, sponsored lenses, and like I mentioned earlier, Snapchat Discover. In addition, engagement to your audience has never been easier. I will inform you on what all of those are, later on. Snapchat was created by Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy. They created this app because they believed pictures were not as personal because they lasted forever, so why not create an app where they only last 10 seconds. Snapchat has come a long way since then, and in 2017, they added the, ‘Discover’ feature, where companies can reach their audience without users needing to first ‘follow’ a company. Through ‘Discover’ you can now stay up to date on the breaking news, the score of the big game, or what your favorite celebrity is doing. Companies like ESPN, GQ, BuzzFeed, People Magazine, CNN, WSJ, and many more have subscriptions on Snapchat As of January 2017, Snapchat was the third most used mobile networking app in the United States, behind Facebook and Instagram. Snapchat has over 300 million monthly users, in the world. There are 323 million people in the United States. Out of those 300+ million, 71 percent of the users are under the age of 34. That last stat is important because businesses are trying to reach the younger generation. The older generations are more loyal to brands, so companies are trying to acquire the younger generation, so they can get more people trusting them. Snapchat has so many active users because of how trendy it is. A Snapchat story is one of the biggest advantages that Snapchat has over every other new media platforms. Facebook and Instagram have both tried to copy Snapchat Stories, but theirs are not nearly as effective. Snapchat stories allow companies to give a behind the scenes look. Fashion brands like Michael Kors have used Snapchat on numerous occasions to debut their collections before they even hit the runway. Not all businesses are as well-known as Michael Kors, you can still use Snapchat Story because it can put a face to your company, making you more personal. Influencers are just as popular as, if not more popular than Snapchat stories. An influencer is a famous person who has thousands if not millions of people follow his or hers Snapchat. They will market your product or service on their Snapchat Story. This not only gets consumers to see your product, but it puts a recognizable face to your brand. Aaron Rodgers tells me to use Harry’s shavers on his Snapchat, now as a fan of Aaron Rodgers; I am going to want to get those razors. Again, Snapchat is popular and trendy that they can reach the younger generation without even having to be a part of Snapchat. I could go and put on my story a video of a new pair of Nike shoes I just bought and people who follow me can watch my story and think those are the coolest shoes ever, and go and buy a pair. Businesses are able to advertise their company logo and get their name out there with ease on Snapchat. Companies are able to create their own Sponsored Geofilter. A geofilter allows people to take a snapchat and depending on their location, there will be a little filter with a company around your location. The company is able to create their own geofilter, making it personal to the brand. A geofilter can be also applied nationwide under a certain theme or holiday, like national coffee day, Starbucks could create their own geofilter for that day. A sponsored lens is different and more interactive to the users, which is why it is more popular than the geofilter. Lenses have special facial recognition technology, which allows the user to become part of the company. Starbucks could create their lens for national coffee day, and the lens would be of them drinking a coffee with the Starbucks logo all over the image. Using new media platforms is an easy way to reach their audience. Each platform has something that no other platform has, and that’s what makes them so popular, because everyone is unique. Snapchat is unique because it can put the brand in the person’s video or picture. With Geofilters and lenses, companies can take advantage of those daily selfies and put their logo into that selfie. Snapchat makes businesses more personable with their Story. Rather than making a television commercial, it allows them to put a face of the business in it and talk to their audience. And, because of how popular and trendy Snapchat is, famous people can promote companies to their audience, which is an audience that the company may not have been reaching before. From now on, those Snapchat selfies are going to be more of a billboard than what a typical selfies used to be. Reference Page Aslam, Salman. “Snapchat by the Numbers: Stats, Demographics & Fun Facts.” • Snapchat by the Numbers (2017): Stats, Demographics & Fun Facts, 11 Aug. 2017, www.omnicoreagency.com/snapchat-statistics/. Corcione, Danielle. “Snapchat for Business: Everything You Need to Know.” Business News Daily, 5 Apr. 2017, www.businessnewsdaily.com/9860-snapchat-for-business.html. http://delmondo.co/23-creative-brands-already-using-snapchats-branded-geofilters/ Lockett, Elena. “4 Reasons Why Businesses Should Use Snapchat to Promote Themselves.”Fourth Source, 27 June 2016, www.fourthsource.com/social-media/4-reasons-businesses-use-snapchat-promote-21112. Snapchat Support, support.snapchat.com/en-US/a/discover-how-to.
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