1 2 3 4

The Best ROI Snapchat Feature You Are Not Using to Build Your Company’s Brand

This year clearly marked the year that Snapchat hit it’s tipping point and reached the masses (67% of their active users are 18–35 year olds). It is no longer seen as a fad or the next best app all the teenagers are using. Snapchat has become the fastest growing social media app growing from 10M active users to 100M active users in less than three years. And if that isn’t a dramatic statistic to convince you, then how about this: Snapchat daily video views increased from 7B daily video views in January 2016 to 10B daily video views at the end of April 2016. 🙉

For the social media savvy and Snapchat users reading this, you probably aren’t surprised and let’s be honest, you yourself most likely just had Snapchat open within the last 10 minutes.

But hold on, this post is for you and all the other “marketers” out there trying to leverage Snapchat.

So let me get right into it. 👇

As a marketer, we have to view Snapchat as a way to build our organization’s (or individual) brand rather than focus on sales and short-term ROI. It’s about showing the in’s and out’s of your business on a consistent, daily basis. Opening up what I call “the social media window” to your business and creating stories allows your fans (and current and future employees) to connect with you on a personal, more intimate level. However, there are many of you out there wondering “How can Snapchat bring a greater awareness to my company if it doesn’t have the discovery and features like Twitter and Facebook”.

Fair question I hear often. Here is the best tactic I have come across and will be implementing this month that can help you build your organization’s brand and awareness while targeting your particular demographic.

Snapchat Filters.

Again, for many of you that’s a no brainer, right? But here me out, I’m taking this to the next level. Even though several of you are creating Snapchat filters for your events, product launches, and festivals internally (places you are already going to be at or a part of), I’m talking about researching, targeting, and implementing a filter that is external to your company.

Here’s what I mean. I came across an article on Gary Vaynerchuck’s website on a 22 year old named Chris Hall, who created Snapchat filters for his company Kickster an app for young “sneaker-fanatics” and he created a filter this filter that his audience would want to use to overlay on their stories. What he did next was genius — he then targeted DJ Khaled events and set up a geo-fence around the venue and submitted the filter anywhere from 2–8 hours so his fans could use it while at the event — Chris and his company weren’t even at the even or in the same city.

The ROI was incredible — for one of his first attempts, he paid $17.54 and garnered over 10.5M filter views equaling $.001 CPM (views per thousand). To give you context, generally 1 CPM (one thousand impressions) cost anywhere from $2–4/CPM on platforms like Facebook and YouTube — that would have cost upwards of $10,000+ in paid media.

This started to get me thinking of how I could use this for my businesses and the clients I work with. Since May, I have been wanting to create and implement a “I Love My Job” or “I Love Monday’s” Snapchat filter for my organization, The Niche Movement. However, I didn’t know how much this would cost or what cities or areas to target (I basically thought it was out of my reach in terms of budget). Additionally, The Niche Movement has been in in the middle of planning a conference and I am looking to target young professionals who love what they do to come speak and other’s who want to find a job they love. Outside of our existing community, I need to find a way to build our brand with 20–35 year olds.

First, let me share a few are a few of my ideas for my business goals and then I will share three ideas for three different industries that may help you strategize how to implement this into your organization.

  1. Since our conference is in D.C., I plan to target conferences and professional events in major cities like Boston, NYC, Philly that match my demographic and have 500+ in attendance and create a filter for them. For example, I am considering targeting Hubspot’s Inbound conference (14,000 in attendance) in Boston in November and creating an engaging filter that may say something like “I’m a content creator” and then put a small “sponsored by The Niche Movement” at the bottom.
  2. Since our other demographic are college juniors, seniors and graduate students, we are going to research and target large career fairs on the east coast at some of the larger schools. Again, using the same tactic, we can create a filter that speaks to that audience while branding it with The Niche Movement. What I am picturing for a filter since The Niche Movement talks about skipping your career is creating a filter with a shirt and tie but with a pair of scissors cutting of the tie.
  3. Lastly, we are looking for some of the coolest companies to work for in the D.C. metro area to be a part of our event — speakers, partners or sponsors. We’ll research these companies and their events and design a few filters that may target a specific company with a “I Love Mondays” or “#TGIM” filter.

Even though we see large corporations like Starbucks and Coke using this tactic, our organizations can do the same thing just on a smaller, more targeted budget with a greater bang for your buck as it relates to dollars spent for impressions that receive greater attention. Here are three more examples outside of my industry that may get you to think.

  1. Beverage product launch — this example relates to my brother in law, Kyle, who is launching a buttered coffee product in the Northwest. When he is ready to build consumer branding, I would suggest creating a few filters that relate to his target demo (25–40 yr olds who are active and health conscious) and research events like local farmer markets, festivals, gyms, and outdoor activities. The way to take that to the next level would be to try and get your product at “said event” that way as people who use your filter may also become familiar with your product and vice versa.
  2. On a college campus — Let’s say you work at a Big Ten school and want to draw attention to your programming committee who plans the end of year concert. Research the most populated and engaging resident halls and most attended events coming up (i.e. athletic events, conferences), and reverse engineer the creative to design a filter that would resonate with that audience and include a small “sponsored by…” at the bottom. Bonus — for college admissions counselors you could create filters and target large college fairs and high schools prior to and during your visit.
  3. Restaurants — If I were a new restaurant (or local business) coming into a populated town or major city, I would take a similar approach to my first example about a product launch. For example, I live in Old Town Alexandria, VA where there is King Street, a 2 mile street filled with restaurants and shops. Any given weekend there are thousands of locals and tourists attending markets, dining, sailing, and strolling through festivals. I would create a “I’m hangry” filter and then have a small “sponsored by…insert your restaurant name.” Then if you run this filter on four Saturdays in a row from 2pm-6pm at certain blocks, you will build awareness to your new restaurant. Again to take it a step further, partner with other local shops or events and leave a postcard or coupon with similar creative that will start to bring brand exposure to your small business.

This is just a start and the big thing here is what I mentioned in this last section: the creative. You can’t just create any filter. First, it must meet Snapchat’s dimensions and guidelines. Two, it really does need to resonate with the audience you want to use it all the way from the colors, design, copy, and how it can be used and viewed in several settings.

Follow along in the coming weeks as I explain more about the behind the scenes of creating and implementing Snapchat filters and the best tools and tactics we would recommend.

Medium blog post 002

Read post 001 — The Dichotomy of Being a Multi-Passionate Entrepreneur/Young Professional