My First Snapchat Takeover Taught Me 5 Things
Learn as I Learn — Digital Marketing
From my first Snapchat takeover, I gained 10 times the followers I normally do and saw some great opportunities for businesses to do co-marketing. A Snapchat takeover is when another person or business gives you their Snapchat username and password to take over their account for the day. They let you login to their account from your phone and you post pictures and videos. I learned that Snapchat takeovers are:
- Essential to grow your Snapchat following
- Mutually beneficial to both parties
- A great market alliance tool for businesses
- Good experience for honing your Snapchat skills
- Great for interacting and networking
1. Essential to Grow Your Snapchat Following
From this takeover I gained 10 new followers in one day. Normally I might gain one follower every other day. Even though 10 new followers is not huge, it is at least 10–20 times higher than my daily average for gaining followers.
Among the 50 people that watched the pictures and videos I shared to My Story in Snapchat, I had a 20% success rate converting those that watched into followers.
Since you cannot be discovered within the actual Snapchat application, native discoverability is a problem for businesses. It is more difficult to be found on Snapchat than Facebook or Instagram. A Snapchat takeover is a common way to get new followers (great article on gaining followers by Suzanne Nguyen).
2. Mutually Beneficial for Both Parties
When you takeover someone’s Snapchat account, you are paying them with interesting content. In turn, the account you takeover is paying you with followers and exposure. When someone comes on a Snapchat account and breaks up the normal stream of pictures and videos, that account has gained more value among its followers.
3. A Great Market Alliance Tool for Businesses
There are so many businesses that are related but do not compete. From restaurants to manufacturing and realtors, each industry has massive market alliance potential. A Snapchat takeover can serve as a co-marketing tool for any group of related business. Not only do you increase your marketing reach but you network in the process:
A Pizza Place in West Michigan
You take over the account of a burger joint in the Detroit, MI area and gain a couple followers. Two weeks later, a Snapchat follower from the takeover happens to visit family in West Michigan. They bring their large family to your restaurant and everyone loves the pizza. This family likes it so much that it becomes a regular spot for those local to West Michigan. You just gained 10 regular customers that rave about your pizza to all their other family and friends. They are all happy customers and post on Facebook about it.
A Metal Fabrication Shop in West Michigan
You take over the Snapchat account for a machine shop in North Georgia that mainly serves the small component manufacturing industry (while you serve agricultural). Four people start following you from the takeover. One month later, a follower from the takeover refers a Michigan friend to your shop because they need your fabrication expertise.
A Realtor in West Michigan
You take over the account for a realtor in Florida. 10 followers are gained and a relative of a new follower is moving to West Michigan next month. The Snapchat takeover follower refers their relative to you as a realtor. You sell them a house. You refer a friend (to the Florida realtor from your Snapchat takeover) vacationing in Florida for a month that needs a rental.
4. Good Experience for Honing Your Snapchat Skills
You are sharing pictures and videos with people that do not know you, therefore, you have to instantly validate why these strangers should care about watching your pictures or videos. This practice will help you get better at providing pictures and videos to your followers that are interesting and get to the point.
On the flip side, you get to view a bunch of different pictures and videos you wouldn’t normally see. I probably watched 50 stories from strange accounts. I was paying extra attention to each account and learned what I should do more or less.
5. Great for Interacting and Networking
I messaged with people from Australia, Scotland, England, France and all over the United States. I even met someone that lives less than an hour from West Michigan (you should follow Jason Vanderstelt, he’s great at Snapchat storytelling).
On a lot of Snapchat stories from strangers, I would send them messages to start a dialogue. I think this heavy engaging is partly what led people to add me after the takeover. You never know how one person you met on the Snapchat takeover could impact you in the future (see point 3 above).
Final Thoughts on a Snapchat Takeover
Watch the Snapchat influencers and you understand their big followings; they are really good at storytelling. The learning I gained from my first takeover was invaluable. The takeover only made me a better storyteller and I gained more followers. If you ever have the chance, take over someone’s Snapchat account.
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Originally published at www.erp101.com.
