Marketers talked a lot about being transparent with your community. The problem is that a lot of them are just talking, without executing.
But let me tell you this: being as transparent as everyone is saying is not so easy. That means that you need to show your community the hard work your employees are doing, to be as human as you can and when you do something bad, just say a sincere sorry and own up your mistake.
[Tweet “Saying to “be transparent” is easy, executing it is the hard part! “]
Nowadays social media is getting more and more transparent and real. I read a lot about social media trends and everybody is saying that the next social media way will be the ecommerce (buy button from Pinterest), or the livestreaming (Periscope, Meerkat and Facebook Live) or the visual one (Instagram, Pinterest, Slideshare). But I didn’t read that social media is getting more… REAL. As in showing who your brand really is.
And here comes Snapchat with its own attitude and anatomy. I see lots of my friends going on Snapchat, some of them just for fun (because it’s trendy – remember the moment when you first logged in on Facebook) and some of them want to bring deep value to their personal branding and other business.
But why do you need to get more into the Snapchat game? Why do you need to see how to use Snapchat for your brand? When you will get the ROI of the time you invest in creating content on Snapchat too?
For all of these question I want to answer you with my next 5 points. I hope that it will help you decide if it’s good for you or not.
Are you ready? Let’s get into it:
1. Give your brand a new touch
Do you remember the first time you heard this statement – the human touch of a brand? Well, my friend, if you didn’t do it with your other social media channels, now is the time to make your brand as human as you can!
When I say more human I don’t want to go into the “get more people reach your content” situation, but I want to say that you need to have a behavior that is on the platform.
How do you leverage the community behavior?
Start with listening and experimenting. See what works better for your brand – photo or video? See if emojis or other layers are getting your people get in touch with your brand. Give them something interesting so they can screenshot it. Ask them exclusively and see how many of them want to talk with your brand.
Just experiment and test.
[Tweet “There is no universal way to success on Snapchat.”]
2. Communicate with your early customers
Who is on Snapchat today? The youngest people? The millennials? Exactly.
Who are these people? The ones that communicate in the easiest way? The ones that always have a smartphone with them and create lots of content? The ones that understand when the brand is creating bullshit or content relevant for them? Exactly.
What don’t marketers understand about this community? That they connect with the world almost 24/7? That they buy things only with their smartphones? That their most intimate friend is a phone that connects easy to their best friend? That they will be their next customers? Exactly.
Now think about these question when we talk about the community on Snapchat and see how relevant they will be for your brand.
3. The Today MTV in your pocket
Do you know who is George Lois? He is one of the real mad men of the advertising industry.
He is the guy that changed the minds of the cable operators and introduced MTV. And the TIME magazine said that “MTV is the most spectacular pop culture phenomenon since the advent of the cable television-and, arguably, since the invention of the tube itself”. George came with the slogan “I want my MTV” where Mick Jagger says it on the telephone in a tv commercial. Months after the commercial went live, MTV was in 80% of all households. (you can read the entire story here).
Now think about this.
[Tweet “Snapchat is the todays MTV in your pocket. “]
You have the Discover part (where you can see the news made specially for that platform). You have celebrities that will start using more and more often this social channel and also you can get more exclusive shows dedicated to you from other brands.
There will be a great catch if MTV will buy Snapchat and invest more in it. Maybe in that way, MTV will be more closer to this community.
The next 2 points don’t belong to me, I heard it in one of Gary Vaynerchuk’s DailyVee and I rapidly noted down so I can write about it in this blog post:
4. Create content to build a context for your brand
I love this statement because I see the 3 words that we (as marketers) need to focus more on them: create / content / context.
This is all about Snapchat. It’s not about link building. It’s not about getting the ROI of it in the next few weeks. It’s not about how many of your followers will buy your product in the next few days. It’s about creating content – the special content you create only on Snapchat.
The special content that you will work harder for so that your followers will love it (by the way, it’s interesting that on Snapchat you don’t have a like situation as we see on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter – do views or screenshots count as likes? Think about this).
5. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it has to be real
This is my favorite statement about how to create content on Snapchat.
A few days ago I talked with a photograph and a hair stylist and they both want to build their personal brand. I suggested them to start with a website/blog, create relevant content for their community and start build their Instagram and Snapchat community. They looked me very surprised when they heard about Snapchat and the first question was – But kind of content should I post there?
So we talked about the importance of creating the relevant content for the right community (remember the previous point) and I told them that on Snapchat and Instagram are their current and next customers. Give them something valuable and at the same time real.
While on Instagram we’re trying to create a special content, almost a perfect one, on Snapchat the game is to get more real.
Conclusion
I’m not as big as others on Snapchat. I look at it as a new way to communicate as a brand and see how it works and why people are in love with this app right now.
But let me tell you my friends, that in the near future you will see something special that will come in the Snapchat world, and you will thank me later (right, Oana?).
Now back to you, what is your biggest concern on using Snapchat?
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