The University Guide to Snapchat
Snapchat User Basics
According to socialmediaexaminer.com in Dec ‘15
- Snapchat has 100 million active daily users.
- 86% of Snapchat’s users fall into the 13–37 age range.
- 5+ billion videos are viewed on Snapchat each day.
If that 13–37 age range doesn’t perk your ears up, then you aren’t focus on the right target market. The other important data here is that a lot of people are consuming a lot of content every day. This should be the driving force behind you creating constant content daily.
Setting Up Your Account
I’m not going to spend a lot of time here, but one thing I do want to mention is that when you are setting up your account, make sure you choose a username that is similar to your users and your University. For example, if you use @collegestateu for all your names, do the same here, it allows users to add you easily. Quick note: there are only three ways for users to add each other on Snapchat, by username, by snapcode (QR code of sorts) or by address book. In most cases on the address book, users will not have your University phone number, so you are really down to two options.
SnapCode
Your snapcode is the area where you add an image to the Snapchat ghost image. In our case, we used our mascot, Pete the Penguin as the image in the ghost. Think about what markings are most recognizable by your fans — a logo or mascot are probably the most common among Universities. By the way, it’s animated, so it’s a few images put into a GIF format.
Building Your Audience
This is where I think a lot of new users are getting hung up, especially brands and businesses. Because Snapchat is setup to connect people because they are familiar in some way with one another, you have to spend a lot of creative energy building connections to your Snapchat account. In our case, I actually made poster boards that I bring to each event on campus and set out for people to interact with. If someone at that event is familiar with Snapchat, they will know what to do when they see the board.
Use your other social channels as the gateway into Snapchat. What is so interesting about social media is that each platform is gateway into another one. It seems that with Snapchat, it was a way for kids to get away from their parents over-the-shoulder watching. For our University, pushing users from Instagram, Facebook and Twitter has had good results, especially Instagram. Once you have your account ready, screenshot or download your snapcode and share away!
One last thing, think outside the box, I also placed our snapcode on billboards. I consider that a bold and risky move because it’s just our snapcode on a yellow board, but it also creates interest and engagement. Again, if someone is on Snapchat already, they know how to add us and interact with this ad.
Creating Content
Again, I’m not getting into how to use Snapchat, there are plenty of guides to this online. Gary Vaynerchuk probably has one of the best all-in-one history and use guides to Snapchat out there. What I do want to talk about is how we approach content and what we are planning in the future.
Right now, we try to engage events, groups and activities on campus. I think one of Snapchats most powerful tools is being able to create authentic, real content for your followers. The platform wants you to make raw video snaps and images that aren’t edited and fancy. It gives personality to the snapper and voice and tone that users understand. If you want to make produced content, put it on YouTube and Instagram, but for Snapchat, keep is raw and original in form.
I see a lot of Universities creating content that is text heavy, again, in my opinion, not the correct medium for Snapchat. You should have students narrating or in front of the camera on every snap telling the daily story of what is happening on campus. Don’t sugarcoat it. It’s important you put together the right team of find the right personality to run your Snapchat channel. With thousands of students to choose from, this shouldn’t be hard.
GeoFilters
The last thing your campus needs to do, create and submit Geofilters. Filters are heavily used by users on Snapchat, and you can create your own that are coordinated geographically to your campus. Create fun, branded filters that users will overlay on their content and share with friends. It is very grassroots, but it is really powerful for your brand strategy. You can also create them for events, think: orientation, welcome week and game day filters.
Why are you still here, get on your phone and download Snapchat right now!
