The Lasting Value of Ephemeral Content
How brands use Instagram and Snapchat for brand building

When the marketing team at watchmaker Daniel Wellington started getting serious about Snapchat in 2016, there was trepidation. “The app seemed like a marketer’s nightmare,” says Christopher Löfgren, the brand’s director of social content. While the social media platform is a hit with younger users, the app’s story function, which allows users to share short videos and still images, all of which disappear in 24 hours, is for marketers a constant source of pressure. Not only must they build content with a remarkably brief shelf life, it often works best when done using the app’s photo filters to give content that distinctive Snapchat air of effortlessness and spontaneity.
Since those early days, however, Löfgren has changed his tune considerably. Now, Daniel Wellington posts stories three to four times a week on both Snapchat and Instagram. The brand recently ran a series of treasure hunts over the course of five weeks in London, Montreal, Washington, D.C., Melbourne, Edinburgh, and Las Vegas. At specific times on specific days, users in each metropolis looked for branded geofilters in different locations and then used the filters in pictures of themselves taken at those places. The upshot: a 35 percent increase in engagement for the brand. “We find it stimulating, and we’re constantly looking for ways to be innovative,” he says. “And engagement levels are high.”
Löfgren is not alone in his feeling. He’s part of a wave of marketers mastering the art of the ephemeral, creating the kind of short-lived social media content that has become popular with teenagers, who tend to frequent Snapchat, and 18- to 34-year-olds, who often prefer Instagram. Snapchat, of course, led the way, first with content that disappeared almost immediately (the better for teenagers to elude the prying eyes of Mom and Dad), then with its 24-hour story feature. Not long after, Facebook introduced its own version through Instagram. Marketers have been trying to build long-term relationships through short-lived content ever since.
FOMO and Brand Equity
There are several compelling reasons to embrace ephemeral content. First, brands need to be where their customers are, of course, and research shows that teenagers and young adults visit these apps frequently. More than 40 percent of people age 16 to 35 reported being members of Snapchat and 61.2 percent were members of Instagram in the past 12 months, according to Futuresource Consulting. Naturally, in order to belong, marketers need to use the parlance of the platform, and that means producing stories.
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