Effective Snapchat Marketing for 2019

It is no surprise that attention is always shifting from one platform to another. Snapchat will be one of the most effective tools for engagement in the new year of 2016. Starting out as an app to exchange pictures which disappear forever in 10 seconds or less, reservations were being held about its potential to grow.

The best move by Snapchat was adding the “My Story” section, allowing users to post pictures/videos in a chronological order that disappear after 24 hours. This keeps the content fresh, and lets friends experience another person’s life as they experience it.

The first moment I heard about a famous hip/hop producer, DJ Khaled, blowing up Snapchat with his inspirational, out-of-the-ordinary, and energetic posts on this addictive platform I added “djkhaled305” as a friend and was not disappointed.

Following DJ Khaled through his routines of asking his personal chef, Chef Dee, what is for breakfast, running on the treadmill, “blessing” his fans and giving advice on success in a voice that resonates with all, I am still realizing the power this platform has. Here you can find pictures like the one below showing his view count for each snap during late December of 2015 and some people suggesting the street-value of an advertisement on DJ Khaled’s account would be approximately $60,000.00 per post.

When you hear someone say “bless up”, talk about Apple Ciroc, or include a key emoji, they reference the now-widely popular personal brand of DJ Khaled. This already-successful music producer tapped into a huge marketing success for his business opportunities and himself and we all can learn from it. Forget newspapers, TV commercials and other old forms of advertisement, attention and advertisement are moving online.

When Gary Vaynerchuk (GaryVee on Snapchat), announced at the end of 2015 he sees Snapchat with huge potential for everything from personal branding to business networking, large numbers of entrepreneurs and businesses took heed and created accounts. Vaynerchuk is known to have been right in similar decisions in his career, A LOT actually — read more about his successes here.

How To Treat Snapchat

This platform is meant for listening and producing frequent, entertaining content — a mix between Twitter and Instagram.

• Listen to people by viewing their content in the “My Story” section and swiping up to send a chat to respond. When you send your message this way it will include an attachment of a screenshot of the picture or video you decided to message from so the receiver of the message has a reference for your comment. Viewing someone’s story will give insight on what is actually important to them during day-to-day activities and adding a comment increases your ability to relate and connect with them.

Building a brand online is a marathon, you may not see immediate ROI, but after Retweeting someone on Twitter, commenting on their Facebook posts, and adding a slightly-comical caption in response to a Snapchat post, you will start to hold a special place in that person’s mind where you are gaining more of their attention with each point of contact.

• Creating the right content for this platform is another way to use Snapchat - much like Instagram’s picture and video posting. Always be 100% authentic and yourself when creating content, especially video, but there are certain things that help with engagement:

1. Post more frequently than you would on Instagram (around one or two times every few hours) so your content will be pushed to the top of your friends’ My Story lists throughout the day.
2. Add value or show some interesting aspects of your day-to-day life to keep the attention of viewers. Show the human aspect of you and your business. Rather than, “check out my website, we have a sale…” show creative ways of your product/service in use.
3. Always add a little humor here and there — everyone loves humor and sharing laughs.
4. Speak directly to your viewers by stating, “you will…” rather than, “people should…” to engage on a higher level. Content sticks better when it is directed toward you rather than being directed toward a general audience. When people watch you, they consume your content alone in their head, even if they are with a group of people. For more on how to structure content check out Hank Norman — this tip is from the media genius himself.

As long as you treat Snapchat like Twitter and listen but also treat it like Instagram and produce pictures and videos with value you will be able to expand your network, connections and personal brand. Have fun with this platform and get creative — Happy Snapping!

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