Curious About Snapchat?
- 200 million+ users - growing rapidly
- Driven by Tweens & Millennials (and social media gurus!)
- Brands are all over it
Ephemeral Advantage
The biggest thing to wrap your head around is that information on Snapchat is temporary - it has a shelf life between 1 second and 24 hours - but after that - it’s gone.
This is its core point of difference and its core advantage.
To the generation who grew up with the internet, who subscribe rather than buy, who don’t own but share - not having to worry about storing something is actually freeing.
Authentic Information
Content is either 10 second videos or photos with text or sticker overlays. You can’t use a video you created for YouTube or take your favorite Instagram photo and upload it - everything is created and experienced inside the app.
When something you share has a super short shelf life - there’s no real point in spending time making it look great. As a result - the photos and videos on the platform are raw and honest and often humorous.
If social media so far has been our idealized selves - Snapchat is our actual reality.
Stories & Interaction
During a 24 hour period you can add your photos and videos to “Your Story” - a continuous loop that strings them together to show your day’s “story” - after 24 hours the content is erased and a new story begins.
This the part of the app that is gaining traction and the one advertisers are most geeked about. I know this all sounds odd but bear in mind that there are in-app celebs whose stories get watched on a daily basis by up to 4 million viewers!
Should You Be On SnapChat
Unless your primary target market is Millenials and you have an additional 30 minutes every day to personally invest in marketing - my view would be - not at this time. I suspect that recommendation may change over time...
Written while listening to: Frustration by music2work2
Image Credit: Snapchat