Ask A 19 Year-Old How He Uses Snapchat

A Fresh Perspective From “Not A Marketer”

Meet Zach Hansen — a 19-year old college student in Helena, Montana. He is an accounting major with big dreams and aspirations. Most importantly, he’s my little brother and I blame him for my love of Snapchat!

Let me explain.

He was sitting on my dad’s couch a few summers ago making funny faces into his phone. I was curious, “what the hell is he doing?” So I asked him! “It’s Snapchat,” he said. “You’re too old to understand.” I didn’t care to know at the time either.

Fast forward to May of 2015, when I first downloaded the app for myself. I wanted to know it better, and the more I used it, the more it started to make sense to me what Zach was doing that day- I was now making those funny faces into my phone! I asked him a few simple questions about it and the rest is Rock and Roll history for me.

I believe that Snapchat has an amazing power that businesses can tap into if they choose to. I truly do. BUT, it seems like in the conversations I have with some other business owners, managers and marketers, in so choosing to create an account, they want to get on the platform so they can reach a young demo.

I believe that is a misconception for this reason alone: Just because you have a Snapchat account for your brand, DOESN'T mean you’re going to attract the 13–24’s automatically. You have to give them a reason to follow you, and you have to impress the hell out of them if you plan on keeping them coming back, and you may have to REALLY knock it out of the park before they ever buy from you or refer their friends! I learned this from the conversation with Zach on my podcast.

I wanted to pick his brain- I asked the how’s and the why’s, and also wondered if he, as a young college student even cared about following brands on Snapchat anyway. Granted, Zach does not speak for every 19 year-old, nor is he super versed in a lot of other social media apps, BUT I couldn’t ignore the opportunity to get instead a young person’s head to see how HE views the world, geofilters and all.

Give this episode a listen and leave your comments below. I’m curious to hear your “two cents” :) Thanks! (Just tap or click the play arrow below)