Snapchat had to be happy with what occurred during the Digital Content NewFronts, which began May 2 in NY. Despite Snapchat’s absence as a presenter at the annual marketing confab, there was considerable buzz generated around the brand when other media brands mentioned it repeatedly during their presentations and marketing.
Hip media brands like BuzzFeed and Vox Media made splashy announcements that included deepening their partnerships with Snapchat. Even established players like Hearst and Ellen DeGeneres committed Snapchat-related news aimed at engaging the platform’s millennial sweetspot. Vox will debut a Snapchat studio to create content for its brands. BuzzFeed, like Vox, a partner with Snapchat’s Discover channel, said nearly one-quarter of its 600 pieces of daily content are viewed on the channel. The newly established digital arm of DeGeneres’s brand, Ellen Digital Network, said it was creating new Snapchat content as did Hearst, which staged a party featuring actor Channing Tatum to tout its Snapchat collaboration. Hearst said it will create content from various of its magazine brands, such as Cosmopolitan, which promises snaps about fashion, food, exercise and beauty.
It’s not as if Snapchat hasn’t made its own splashes lately. The relatively informal, in-the-moment channel boasts more than 100 million daily active users, with 8+ billion video views per day. For comparison, behemoth Facebook similarly claims 8+ million video views daily.
On the other hand, not all the news about Snapchat is favorable. In late April a lawsuit claimed a young woman involved in a serious car accident was using Snapchat’s Speed filter, which allows one to show how fast they are moving while snapping. In this case a teenage woman was driving near Atlanta at more than 100 mph when she snapped. Unfortunately she also plowed into another car, resulting in a serious accident. A man in the other car, Wentworth Maynard, is suing the young woman, who claimed she was driving at that speed on a 55-mph road only to post it to Snapchat.
The company responded that it abhors such behavior. “No Snap is more important than someone’s safety. We actively discourage our community from using the speed filter while driving, including by displaying a ‘Do NOT Snap and Drive’ warning message in the app itself,” TechCrunch reports.
In The Moment, But… All this led us to ask a pair of communications pros to discuss how brands can best use Snapchat to engage millennials and tell stories.
It’s important to know Snapchat is a reaction to the relatively polished perfection and, some would say, “artificiality and fakeness” of Facebook and even Instagram, says Hannah Law, VP, global social, Ogilvy. Adds Leslie Douglas, social media senior manager, PwC, “Snapchat wears its rough edges like a badge of honor.” In fact, Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel, 25, emphasizes the platform’s spontaneity and its ability to show people reacting immediately, which is underlined by the disappearance of content after 24 hours.
Still, brands are cautioned against jumping in to Snapchat without preparing. It’s critical for brands to set up their objectives first. “Know the story you want to tell and know what your goals and objectives are for using Snapchat,” Douglas says. Like any action brands take, using Snapchat needs to be done “thoughtfully and intentionally,” Douglas says.
In fact, while fun, hip consumer brands lend themselves to Snapchat, Law believes even relatively serious brands can achieve their goals and objectives with it. She points to Burberry’s as an example. While the content Burberry’s produces eschews various Snapchat filters and tools that allow users to draw pictures on their snaps or add emojis, for example, the fashion brand tells its story well, she says. It highlighs its clothes and provides behind-the-scenes views that humanize the brand. In keeping with the informality of the platform, though, fashions in Burberry’s Snapchat snaps aren’t “as perfectly styled” as you’d find them to be on other platforms.
Training:The informality of Snapchat can mask the human resources, time and training needed to create useful content, says Douglas. She also mentions Snapchat changes so often that it’s important to “stay up to date” with modifications. One of the best ways, she believes, is to experiment with Snapchat outside of work.
Storytelling: There are multiple ways brands are using snaps to tell stories [for examples, see Law’s Brand Opportunities graphic]. You can produce snaps in “a stream of consciousness…perhaps at an event…where you are literally posting or snapping anything that is interesting to you,” Douglas says. Or you can “take the viewer on a journey…where [snaps provide] a beginning, middle and end.” When snaps form a story, she says, viewers are “more likely to complete your snap” and respond to a call to action.
Adds Law, “Once you have thought about the story your brand wants to tell, map the content in an editorial calendar…do as much preparation upfront as you can, then keep an open mind and experiment.” It’s important to note, though, pre-recorded material can’t be used on Snapchat.
Out-of-the-Box Engagement: There are few better ways to engage with consumers and demonstrate transparency than by holding interactive Q&A sessions on Snapchat, Douglas says. She points to fashion brands that field questions about the prices of the garments or where they are manufactured. Sometimes brands will take questions at a specific time each week to build up a following. Others will answer questions when they arrive, on the spot.
Analytics: At the moment, measurement is available only via the Snapchat platform. 3rd party vendors are not allowed. Still, Snapchat offers data about Reach, Engagement and Action (are followers responding to your calls for action?). Yet, you need to measure fast, preferably daily, as data disappears within 24 hours and “it’s a very manual process,” Douglas says [see her measurement graphic]. When Snapchat is one aspect of your campaign it’s important to measure how Snapchat content is received on other platforms. Adds Law, “I think [Snapchat] is honest about [its analytics situation]…and they want to build it out.” She notes the addition May 1 of ecommerce ads on Snapchat. This is a sign that the platform will be addressing its analytics issues soon, she says.
CONTACT: @lwadouglas @hannahlaw