#MisfitsLive: Snapchat for Good
At Social Misfits Media, we like to encourage our clients and partners to approach their social media from an audience-first perspective — and over the years, we’ve seen innovative and exciting campaigns take place on platforms you wouldn’t usually expect.
In our latest survey, we were surprised only 1% of 100 UK charities were actively using Snapchat, which got us thinking. How could third sector organisations share their impact and bring their work to life on the platform?
Many of our clients and partners have yet to venture onto the platform — something we hope to change. The most common things we hear against having a Snapchat strategy tend to be misguided preconceptions like “it’s too hard to use,” “the audience is too young” or “you can’t create content around serious issues.” To debunk some of these myths, we hosted an event as part of our #MisfitsLive series, with David Norris, UK Head of Creative Strategy at Snapchat, and Joe Williams, Immersive Lead from LADBible . In our event and panel discussion last week, we discussed the platform, best practices, and took a look at a number of innovative social good campaigns that we can all take inspiration from.
“Snapchat always opens to the camera, not to what everyone else is doing.”
The centrepiece of the app is the camera. With a wealth of Lenses, filters, stickers and features, Snapchat encourages users to express themselves and communicate with their “best and closest friends”. Unlike other platforms, which open to a feed, Snapchat encourage users to create and share content from their perspective and experience. This is why it always opens to the camera.
Snapchatters use Augmented Reality (AR) features to discover and unlock more information about the world around them. The platform is designed thoughtfully, and user behaviour is taken into consideration when it comes to new features. A key example shared was around the temperature filter. User behaviour showed that once the weather filter was used, users would delete and not post the Snap. At first glance, it could be assumed that this meant this filter provided a bad user experience, or lost the users interest. After undertaking a survey however, Snap found that users were actually using this functionality to check the weather outside. As a result, Snap created a filter that shares the next three and five day weather report.
Camera for good
Through the Snapchat camera and AR, the real world becomes a creative living canvas, allowing users to become participants in stories that aren’t static but alive.
A few campaigns that the platform has worked on include a Lens developed in partnership with the UN, which showed the rising sea level based on where you were located. This Lens communicate a powerful visual message of what is happening to the world around us.
Another recent campaign focused on Black History Month, where users were able to discover and learn about different pieces of art and history through an AR gallery, again putting the user at the centre of the experience.
The Role of Storytelling
So how can brands and charities take advantage of the platform? According to Joe Williams, Immersive Lead at LADbible, it’s through the power of storytelling. “Humans are natural storytellers — we want to be as far into that story as possible.” The youth-focused publisher has developed and created several social and environment focused campaigns, geared towards their audience and leveraging the creativity found on the platform.
The most notable campaigns include Knowing Me, Knowing EU — driving the referendum youth vote; U OK M8 — destigmatising mental health; and Trash Isles — a partnership with the Plastic Oceans Foundation.
The publisher creates topical content tailored to their audience, respectful of the platforms being consumed on. This nuanced approach enables them to tackle serious or sensitive issues that are actively engaged with.
One campaign in particular was developed by LADBible, the official youth partner of the UK government, who were hosting the Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT) conference. An interactive Snapchat Lens was developed to raise awareness of elephant poaching, delivering a 20 second immersive documentary experience, through which the user gets transformed via AR into an African elephant is detusked, and then, turning back into their human selves, are adorned with an ivory necklace, to raise understanding and show a visual representation of the issue at hand.
Why Is It Important?
Eight out of every ten teenagers in the UK is on Snapchat. The 18–34 group is the largest, with many parents joining the platform, too. As well as creativity, there is an increase in AR being used for education. The Economist is a great example of this, who in partnership with Kabaq, explored the future of food in AR.
The difference in user behaviour on the platform also can’t be dismissed easily. A recent Game of Thrones activation, which saw Westeros superimposed onto landmarks in New York City, saw a surge in social activity and engagement around the show — notable, as many users tend to avoid other platforms in order to avoid spoilers.
Where Should I Start?
Snapchat’s creative tools such as Lenses and Filters, afford a range of creative possibilities. From bringing out animal alter egos with special Lenses (which could be of interest to animal welfare organisations), to helping solve math equations (potentially relevant to education charities). The Snapchat camera can even unlock contextual gifs for users. For example, the app can recognise what the user is looking at — for example flowers — and can unlock features and information based on image recognition. Filters are a great starting point for organisations looking to experiment on the platform — they are quick, cost effective, and the creative lift is light as there are a range of templates available.
Augmented reality features can even be digitally mapped to buildings and specific locations. Snapchat recently launched Landmarkers through which Snapchatters can create and unlock incredible experiences tied to monuments such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris and Buckingham Palace here in London.
And now AR is more accessible than ever before with Snapchat’s Lens Studio — a free desktop app with which anyone can create AR experiences and share them. Since launch, over 400k community Lenses have been created, and people have played with those Lenses over 15 billion times! No complex coding skills are required, and through the platform a new wave of creators have come to the fore.
To find out more about Snapchat, you can check out their website and For Business site. To find out more about how some of our clients have used the platform, check out our latest guide, Make It Social, here.
