Snapchat is becoming a catalyst for brands wishing to make an impact but what makes the platform so successful and are promotions part of the recipe?
From 2015 up until the present, Snapchat’s active monthly users reached 200 million, proving to be the fastest growing social media platform to date! Snapchat has clearly soared greatly in popularity and interest. So, what are some of the features that it has to please users multimedia based needs?
- Stories and Custom Stories
- Interactive filters and lenses
- Geofilters
- Voice alteration
- Mapping
- Bitmojis and stickers
- Snapcash to send money between users
- Shazam
Although these features could enable imaginative campaigns to be launched quickly, cheaply and easily in just about any country of the world they are difficult to track and monitor. The best way to involve Snapchat in your promotion without headaches, is to simply use Snapchat to engage with fans but stick to other social media for them to enter.
So, for instance ask followers to take a screengrab from your brand’s Snapchat story and then repost it on Twitter or Instagram using a promotional hashtag. Or, invite followers to view a Snapchat story that involves a clue or instructs them to use Snapchat to create a fun photo that can be posted on another platform.
Examples of some top Snapchat promotions
McDonald’s: As of June 2017, McDonald’s advertised their job applications through Snapchat, with a catchy campaign known as “Snaplications”. Users get the chance to see images and videos on the McDonald’s Snapchat story, promoting work positions, ending with a more information and career page.
Mondelez: The international confectioner offered Snapchat users the opportunity to win $10,000 for sending their most creative snap featuring the ‘Time Out’ chocolate bar.
H&M: Carried out a marketing campaign in Poland, where they hid party tickets in stores and sent clues via snapchat, which gained them 1,000 new followers!
Easihair Pro: Users could enter a Snapchat competition where they had to snap an image of themselves tagging the product and hair salons they had the chance to win hair extensions.
Although Snapchat may be living in its social media glory, there are some factors to consider when running a successful promotion!
- Entry Data – Typically an image is submitted by a user and then it disappears instantaneously, however now they can be added to their story and can be ‘infinite’.
- This is a good thing, however means an individual will manually have to screen-grab image to save as data, which is time consuming and inefficient. This would only be suitable for small promotions!
- Opting for a ‘First Past the Post’ method, means that the first person to ‘snap back’ with the answer to a question or challenge wins! This is a quick method and means that other responses are eliminated.
Still want to run a campaign on Snapchat? Some points to consider:
- You must have full Terms and Conditions – post them on another platform so that they can be viewed at any time.
- Your T&Cs must include the disclaimer that the promotion is not endorsed or administered by Snapchat.
- Make sure your T&Cs request that any Snaps sent are set to the maximum – 10 seconds – to allow time to record it
- Be aware of and always follow Snapchat’s Terms of Service, Community Guidelines and Privacy Policy.
- Do not use Snapchat’s name or logo.
- Do not encourage spamming or asking followers to send Snaps to friends or posting multiple Snaps that are the same.
- Don’t forget to post entries to your Story Feed – sharing the entries with your followers encourages them to engage with your brand on a personal level. And definitely share the winning entry if it is a competition.
So if you’re considering running any social media promotion, speak to PromoVeritas for advice first.
Contact us at info@promoveritas.com or call +44 203 325 6000