Let It Snap: Diversify Your Social Media Strategy With Snapchat Marketing
Q4 2021 is quickly approaching, and that can only mean that the holiday season is almost upon us. We (and the dozens of carolers you may eventually encounter) like to call this “the most wonderful time of the year,” because now is the time for brands to reconsider their social media strategy.
As can be expected, certain social media platforms are becoming more and more unpredictable every day and an over-reliance on a single platform can mean your brand is playing catch up with the competition. If you’re looking for a unique way your brand can connect with your customers (while seeking to avoiding toxicity and political infighting), the answer is as easy as a snap… Snapchat, that is.
Between rising CPMs, ever-changing customer behavior, and increased data privacy restrictions, Snapchat marketing offers low-risk, high-reward opportunities for brands looking to invest in building authentic customer relationships.
If you’ve marketed on the platform before, the holidays are all about reconnection; it’s time to revisit Snapchat and see how they’ve invested in their ad capabilities. For those who have no experience with Snapchat, know this: the platform offers an array of mature direct response offerings built for brands that are more efficient with your dollars than many other social networks.
So let’s take a quick look at what sets Snapchat marketing apart from its competitors and why it’s a great place to start diversifying your social media mix.
Marketing through Snapchat is all about trust and crafting direct personal connections
When social media was still new, people were much more likely to trust the content they found there. Now, users have become increasingly distrustful of what they’re served on their social feeds. While other platforms continue to battle toxic discourse and warring political factions, Snapchat’s emphasis on a direct, personal connection means it’s a much safer place for brands to reach, engage, and convert potential customers.
That sense of community has resulted in a social media experience that is hyper-personal and content creator-focused. In addition to the non-politicized atmosphere, the comments-off environment ensures that your ads won’t get hijacked by bad actors.
Speaking of a personal connection, Snap shared that 95% of Snapchatters say the platform makes them feel happy. That’s big for brands: people are much more likely to be in the right mindset when they interact with your content. Happy customers could mean a very happy holiday for your business.
Despite these clear marks in the “pro” column, there are revenue-driving opportunities associated with building that kind of direct connection that many social media marketers are currently overlooking.
Data privacy restrictions have changed the social media marketing landscape
New data privacy restrictions seem to crop up every day, and marketers must continue to adapt. As targeting and optimization capabilities change, brands must cast a wider audience net in order to maintain their reach and efficiency.
CPMs are also rising, which means that your marketing dollars don’t go as far as they once did on certain platforms. Snapchat offers a lower average CPM than other social media platforms across multiple industries.
If you’ve marketed on Snapchat before, this likely doesn’t come as a shock. Snapchat has always been a great option when it comes to upper funnel campaigns and driving brand awareness. What you might not know is that, unlike other platforms that have similar upper funnel capabilities, Snapchat has invested significantly in their pixel and tracking capabilities, ensuring that brands can get what they need out of the platform.
Direct response marketing via Snapchat has never been easier—or more effective
With the Snap Pixel, marketers can:
- Measure campaign impact
- Track conversion across devices
- Build retargeting audiences
- Optimize campaigns for your budget
- Power dynamic ad campaigns
- Unlock valuable delivery and audience insights
Snapchat has also worked to diversify their ad format offerings. The three key types of ads that our social media experts recommend using are Snap Ads, which are single image or video ads users can tap to take an action, Collection Ads, which highlight a suite of products and can be tapped on to purchase or find out more information without leaving the app, and Story Ads, which are a series of image or video ads featured as a branded tile in Snapchat’s Discover section.
Still asking why you should be using Snapchat? We already know that Snapchat’s user base is younger and happier than other platforms. On top of that, according to Snap’s data, Snapchatters spend an average of 30 minutes per day on the platform, and open the app an average of 30 times. They’re much more engaged than your typical social audience, and that platform loyalty at least partially accounts for Snapchat’s lower average CPA.
Plus: you can ensure your social media strategy is not completely dependent on a single platform, especially in such an uncertain time in the world of digital.
Social diversification is no longer a nice-to-have: it’s essential to digital success
You might not be able to control what happens with data privacy restrictions or how customer behavior will continue to change on certain platforms, but you can control how you are allocating your budget and deploying your ads across channels.
Simply put: the vast majority of businesses investing in social media marketing are overindexed in a single channel, and that puts them at risk.
But the remedy is right in front of you: explore additional platforms (like Snapchat) and see what works for your brand. And getting started and running initial tests on Snapchat is pretty easy.
To succeed on Snapchat, you need to remember what makes the platform so attractive as a direct response channel to begin with—and why users love it.
Make your move: how to market on Snapchat
We’ve put together some quick tips to make sure you’re ready to test Snapchat’s capabilities:
- Be authentic in your messaging. It’s about creating a personal connection, Snapchat users can tell when you’re pandering to them.
- Keep your creative assets nice, neat, and relevant. Overproducing a creative asset leads to a waste of resources and can cloud your message.
- Take risks and see what works. Since Snapchat is low-risk, high-reward, you can play around to see what works for you and your audience.
- Partner with content creators, trendmakers, and influencers already on the platform. You can use their connections to tap into an audience to which you might not have otherwise been able to gain access.
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