Snapchat Targeting is Here…With a Few Tricks
Unlike Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks, Snapchat does not offer targeting or audience segmentation…officially. But with a few simple tweaks, you can create similar functionality and vastly improve engagement with your profile or brand.
Who Needs Targeting on Snapchat?
If you have 10 followers and snap once a week or so, the answer is “Not you.” However, if you manage brands or have an extensive personal following (in the hundreds of thousands to over a million), targeted snaps should be an essential tool in your social media arsenal.
With targeted incentives, you can reward your followers with special content, exclusive stories, or VIP coupon codes. Incentives like this will:
- Keep followers loyal to your brand and engaged in your snaps and stories
- Increase organic growth when followers share the good news with their own social networks
- Showcase your brand’s cutting-edge Snapchat savvy
Let’s create a targeted snap
Apparently it looks like that Snapchat saves access permissions at the moment each snap is inserted into the My Story.
First, you’ll need to change a few settings. Access your permissions settings, and find the settings for Who Can View your snaps and stories. Most brands using Snapchat have this set to “Everyone.”
Next, you’ll change “Everyone” to a select group of friends or followers. Make sure to keep it manageable! I don’t recommend selecting more than 100 people.
You’ll need to manually add each Snapchat username to the targeted group, either by typing in usernames or using the “Added me” feature. (Hey, we’re gaming the system here — they can’t make it TOO easy on us!)
Once you have your targeted group, you can continue to segment them more specifically. To learn more, check out this great article by Shaun Ayala.
We’re just a few steps in, and you’ve already got your targeted group! Now, return to the “Who Can View / My Story” settings and change the value to “My Friends.”
You can even take it a step further: Using the “Custom” option, you can filter visibility among the targeted group by blocking some of its members.
Using various combinations of these two options, you can develop a powerful targeting and segmentation tool.
Now, here’s the critical question you’re thinking if you’re a high-level Snapchat user: How will this affect the experience of non-targeted subscribers? Great news: It won’t!
They’ll see your regular snaps as usual and won’t know they’re excluded, while your targeted viewers see your VIP content. Your followers won’t know a thing except that you added them as a friend — which also increases brand engagement!
That’s important: Market segmentation only works if you have the tools to segment effectively.
Snapchat hasn’t implemented features to make segmentation easy just yet, but with a little creativity and time, it can be done effectively. Please try it out and leave some comments and thoughts on how my tweaks worked for you!
Follow @mobiuu on Snapchat.
