Slinger Reveals the Power of Snapchat for Marketing a Product: 5 Things You Can Learn from Their Story.

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored article. I was on Slinger as one of the first users and love it as it’s a way to store my Snapchat stories for longer than 24h. The article is not about Slinger (although I see potential for brands and hope to write a post on the topic). It’s about Snapchat that helped Slinger become pretty famous in a short period of time.

Not many brands and businesses use Snapchat in their marketing efforts. It’s understandable from the managerial point of view. The KPIs are hard to measure. The content disappears. It’s harder to start and to build an audience as there is no “Suggest users” option. It takes time. And time is money. Managers care about the numbers: mentions, reach, impressions — aspects that no Internet monitoring tool can measure with Snapchat at the moment. That’s why managers get it all wrong. Snapchat is not about numbers. It’s about delivering a brand or business’ story to the audience. Audience, whose attention shifts from Facebook and Instagram to Snapchat.

Snapchat is getting a lot of buzz right now. As I often say, it’s not going to go anywhere so it’s better to get acquainted to it ASAP. And the case of Slinger proves my words.

Slinger is an app for vertical videos. You can upload your Snapchat creations and other videos that you shoot vertically. It’s a way to keep your content alive.

When I started using Snapchat I started with adding people I found on other Social Media although at that point I had no idea who most of them were. With Snapchat that’s how you start building your community. At the beginning of the year something phenomenal happened. A lot of these people started recommending Slinger. Whatever story I opened it seemed Slinger was on it. As a startup founder and from business perspective I was WOW-ed. Do you know how hard it is to build an audience? And here, Slinger makes such an appearance. To top it all off, as it turned out, those people that I added and who recommended it turned out to be some ‘big names’ in the Snapchat world.

It got me thinking: How come an app, I (!! and I consider myself pretty techie and up-to-date with novelties on the tech scene) have never heard of, is making such an impact on Snapchat? According to the founder @chriscarm , Slinger hit 200k seconds of video watched in first 24 hours. And all that, from what I observed, thanks to Snapchat. If this doesn’t convince you that Snapchat is a powerful tool then I don’t know what will.

So you think that they must have spent a lot of bucks on marketing, right? Especially getting all the influencers involved. I have been bootstrapping myself and I knew it was not possible. But if not for money, then HOW did it happen?

I got inquisitive. Here is what I learned:

1. At that point I had developed a relationship with one of the influencers (although I didn’t know then he was one) and I asked him about Slinger. He said the founder reached out to them asking if they would be interested in Beta. They played around with a few versions, uploaded videos, tested it out and gave feedback before Slinger’s launch.
2. I reached out to Slinger and learned that Chris (the founder) wasn’t an outsider trying to reach the Snapchatters from a corporate office somewhere, he was simply talking with his peers about his latest idea.
3. I was wondering how Chris convinced influencers to participate in Beta testing. It appears he himself is a Snapchat influencer so it was natural to ask a friend or two for a favor.

What else happened?

Some people accused the influencers of being sponsored. @Mplatco created a story explaining why he recommended Slinger — simply because he found it useful. (Personally I didn’t care if they were paid or not. People deserve to be paid for their work. But this is another topic for Snapchat marketing tips)

Take-aways:

You may say Chris had an advantage. He knew all those people who had had established their big following earlier. And you are right. But here are some things you need to know: Chris has been telling stories on Snapchat from January 2014. It took him time and hard work to stand out and become an influencer. It took him time and engagement to establish relationship with other ‘cool guys’ on Snapchat. And most of all- he provided value to them.

5 things you can learn from their story as a brand/business/marketer:

1. Get on Snapchat now. It takes time to build meaningful relationships.
2. Talk to the creators. Snapchat provides some kind of ‘anonymity’. You can’t click on someone’s name and learn who they are. This is why it’s great. Everyone is equal. Everyone belongs to the same ‘family’. Creators love to create. Talk to them. Ask them for their opinion. They may give you amazing feedback or even help with your Snapchat stories.
3. Provide value . Slinger helps Snapchat users upload their creative stories into one place where the stories can live forever. Snapchatters love it. I love it. If I put my heart into a story I don’t want it to disappear. That’s why I give a shout-out to Slinger. That’s why so many people have.
4. DON’T TRY TO SELL on Snapchat. Snapchat has different dynamic than other social media. Tell your story! Have people tell your story. Don’t use tricky product placement techniques. AUTHENTICITY. Be authentic. People thought Slinger paid the influencers and were irritated. It shows that Snapchat users don’t like the typical marketing practices. So just don’t. What did Slinger do wrong? Maybe they didn’t communicate the influencers’ voluntary engagement clearly enough. Maybe they did nothing wrong. But when Snapchat users see any product that is being ‘advertised’ a lot of them become hostile. Figure out not only what your audience wants but also what they don’t want to see.
5. Engage with your audience and build trust. Slinger has a great customer service. I had a problem and emailed their support — received a quick answer. I commented on Twitter and they emailed me offering help. They engage — on Twitter & on Slinger. They make an extra effort to give their user a feeling he/she is taken care of.

If you find this post helpful, please share with your networks. It would mean a lot to me. I hope more and more people will understand Snapchat and will use it for good marketing.

If you want to learn more about Slinger follow them on Twitter . You can also read about the app on Product Hunt and follow the creator -ChrisCarm.

I’M ON SLINGER @igruszka
SNAPCHAT @igruszka

Feel invited to join me in my SnapWorld.