Social Media Channel: Snapchat

“Is that a blue or green shirt she’s wearing? Oh no the picture disappeared!”

The social application that originally seemed to be nothing more than a novelty used by teens to share fun or suggestive photos, has matured into a platform that may become much more influential in the marketing world.

Defining the social media channel

Snapchat is a platform that allows users to communicate with each other using disappearing photos, videos, and messages. While the photos, videos and messages disappear after being viewed, they will remain in the user's inbox until they are viewed for a maximum of 30 days. Once opened, photos appear anywhere from 1 to 10 seconds depending on the user's settings, with videos ranging 1 to 10 seconds depending on the length of the video recorded. If you are using the messaging feature, messages will remain during the length of the conversation however upon exiting the conversation, the text message style messaging will disappear. There is a feature that allows you to tap on any part of the conversation to save it.

Snapchat has added features that allow users to enhance their photos with filters or lenses. Filters are accessed after taking the photo by swiping left or right to add the filter to your photo. To add multiple filters, by pressing and holding on the screen of the first filter, you can continue to swipe and add multiple filters. There are also specific filters called geofilters. These only show up when the user is in the vicinity of specific cities or businesses. Lenses are fun animations or overlays added to faces by pressing and holding on the user's face during a selfie. The lenses available change frequently, which is a great way to get users to check back often to see what new fun photos they can create.

Snapchat users can also create “stories”. This can be a string of various pictures and videos that remain on the users snapchat story for 24 hours. Snapchat stories can be replayed as many times as desired, but each photo or video within the story is only available for 24 hours from the time that particular item was posted.

This social media can operate on iPhone, iPad’s, androids, and various other mobile devices that have cameras in which you can share stories, videos clips, pictures of your life and engage with others using the app.

History of the channel

Snapchat (originally launched as Picaboo) was founded in July of 2011 (with an official launch in the AppStore in September 2011) by Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy. Reggie Brown claimed he was the company’s third founder after the launch, and this claim went on to become a lawsuit between Brown, Spiegel, and Murphy 1. Brown was not found to have contributed substantially to the creation of the platform.

Back in 2012 on the first ever snapchat blog post, founder Evan Spiegel wrote “Snapchat isn’t about capturing the traditional kodak moment” going on to say that he created an “app that doesn’t conform to unrealistic notions of beauty or perfection but rather creates a space to be funny, honest or whatever else you might feel like at the moment you take and share a Snap.”2 In the beginning, Snapchat did not have much functionality, and was only based on sharing photos. It wasn’t until October 2013 that Snapchat launched their story feature. From there, after a failed attempt by Facebook’s CEO to buy Snapchat, geofilters were added in July 2014, Ads in January 2015 and in 2016, even the White House joined snapchat 3. The company rebranded itself in 2016, officially becoming “Snap!” and made several other changes including major application updates, a new API which made it easier for brands to buy and deploy ads, and new hardware called “Spectacles” which are glasses made specifically for capturing and posting video clips. It also introduced a feature called Memories which allows users to save, import and share photos. All of these changes, as well as rumors of an IPO, have made it a platform that is a “force to be reckoned with” 4 and making the tech world wonder what else is to come in 2017.

Who uses the channel?

Initially, the audience who readily adopted Snapchat were mostly teenagers who wanted to send information to their friends without their parents or teachers seeing it. Seven months after the launch of Snapchat, co-founder Evan Spiegel said that “We were thrilled to hear that most of them were high school students who were using Snapchat as a new way to pass notes in class—behind-the-back photos of teachers and funny faces”. 2 The application only continued to grow in popularity and today, out of 150 million daily active users 5, the app is most popular with adults 25-34 making up 38% of users and ages 35+ making up 14% 6. The app is used by both male and female users with a variety of incomes, education levels, interests, and habits. In general, the people that use Snapchat are those looking for instant information, fun and instant connection. While there is an older audience that is attuned to Snapchat, the channel is about appealing to a generation that wants information and social connections at their fingertips with the click of a button. Snapchat is truly a universal platform with anyone being able to use the app regardless of personality types or common interests.

Major brands are also starting to use the channel for quick-attention ads, special promotions, and brand awareness. Several major brands have purchased ads on Snapchat and are increasing their engagement with the audience.

How Brands use the channel-

One of the ways brands are using Snapchat is through a feature called a sponsored lens. For example, Gatorade used a sponsored len’s with Serena Williams during the 2016 Super Bowl. Gatorade released a lens that let the user dump a bucket of Gatorade on their head; similar to what sports teams do after a win. After purchasing their lens (which costs around $450,000 per sponsored lens on normal days, and up to $750,000 on "peak days" like holidays and the Super Bowl) 7 the company had Serena create a picture of herself getting the Gatorade bath. Gatorade then tweeted a GIF (graphics interchange format; or a quick video clip) of the athlete’s Snapchat on their Twitter feed. By the end of the day, users flocked to Snapchat to view the lens which received over 100 million views 7. This is a great example of how Gatorade integrated their Twitter and Snapchat channels together.

Brands or teams can also set up their own Snapchat channels and post pictures and videos through their channel. Users must add the brand to their channel as a friend however if the brand’s Snapchat account sharing setting is set so everyone can view their account, they do not need to add the user in return. The downside to this feature is that if users do not choose to view the brand’s photos or videos, the marketing may not be as effective. Brands do this to promote awareness, gain followers, and hope to increase purchases of their brand.

An example of brands using Snapchat for social sharing are sports teams. For example, the Colorado Avalanche use their Snapchat account not just for game days but for an insider glimpse to practice and player interviews. In addition to sharing videos of the players arriving for game day, the organization uses their own filter on game days on top of videos of warm ups and live game action. They also use their Snapchat account for contests and contest information. For example, the organization constantly gives out random pairs of tickets in a partnership with KeyBank. The brand will take a picture of a red key located somewhere around the downtown Denver area. The user will then have to use the picture(s) to locate where the hidden key is in order to receive the free tickets. This generates fan excitement and support for the team.

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Built in analytic tools-

At this time, Snapchat does not have built in tools that assist with analytics for the channel. There are several companies, such as Snaplytics or Delmondo, that can provide an inside look into a brand's Snapchat analytics. Even these provide fairly basic information, and it doesn’t seem as if there is yet a good way to measure whether revenue and profitability were affected through the channel. However, you can get a view into engagement using either of these tools. Some of the measures recommended are: 8

Total Unique Views: number of people who have opened the first frame of your Snapchat Story Total Story Completions: number of people who have viewed the last snap in your story -

meaning that they have viewed the story all the way through because the snaps are viewed sequentially.

Screenshots: how many people have taken screenshots of your photos, indicating that they liked it or were engaged enough to take an action.

A brand could also do some manual calculations to come up with some basic metrics. For example, if you want to know how many people viewed your entire story, you can open up the screen that shows each segment in the story and how many people viewed that particular segment. This is very time consuming if you have a lot of segments and a lot of viewers/followers.

Business models for the channel-

The best way to increase snapchat engagement and turn a profit has been found to be the paid lenses. One of the more successful lenses has been Starbucks. Every year in May, Starbucks runs a promotion called Frappuccino Happy Hour where you can get any Frappuccino for half price. They promote the campaign via a Snapchat geofilter. The catch is that the geofilter would only appear during the Happy Hour time frame and only if you were in the area of a Starbucks. By setting up the filter to appear only during happy hour, Snapchat and Starbucks encouraged people to buy during this time frame. While Starbucks did not post specific profit results, the article author indicated it “worked personally” as they went to their local Starbucks to get a frappuccino during the campaign time frame 9

Another good example of a profitable Snapchat campaign is the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The WWF started the “Last Selfie” campaign. In this campaign the WWF snapchatted 6 pictures of endangered species using the hashtag “#LastSelfie”. They encouraged you to save or screenshot the picture and to donate to the WWF. In only 3 days, the campaign raised the amount targeted for the entire month. 10

Other brands have used Snapchat to increase profit by way of increasing engagement and brand awareness. While many of the brands were able to point to increased Snapchat followers, Twitter impression or Facebook fans, none of them published profitability results. 11 This may be because of the lack of integration of analytic measuring tools with the Snapchat application.

List of strengths and weaknesses and example-

Strengths Weaknesses

Private user sharing. You can set your profile to “Everyone” or “My Friends” to define who can see your pictures and videos.

Videos must be timed perfectly. Videos are only 10 seconds and you can’t record a whole song at a concert for example.

Pictures aren’t permanent. Goofy, embarrassing or even promiscuous pictures do not stick around, unless the viewer takes a screenshot (which sends a notification to the sender).

Pictures aren’t permanent. Users can save posted pictures to their camera or memories however recipients cannot save snaps without notifying the sender that they have done so.

Fun and easy to use. Easy to post pictures. No way to automate. Posts cannot be set to automatically post from a platform such as

Hootsuite.*

Interactive way to engage with users with coupons, contests or reaction pictures *

Bad press. Companies may still be hesitant to use the channel as it was originally thought of to be a “sexting” app.*

Continually evolving. Snapchat listens to its users and continues to add new features. They have also backed features out when they were not popular with users.

Difficult to get a brand message across in only 10 seconds

Audience engagement through use of geofilters, lenses, and stories.

No ability for users to forward/share photos or videos they receive, and no ability for them to “like” your photos

Doesn’t integrate seamlessly with most other social media channels

No built-in analytics reporting tools. Companies must outsource to get analytics or provide independent analysis to determine success rate

*= 12

Smart brands have figured out ways to leverage the engagement strengths of Snapchat. For example, when Taco Bell was planning to introduce a new Burrito, they first used Twitter to tell people they were on Snapchat and tell them there would be a secret Snapchat only announcement to their followers the next day. The followers were then sent a “snap” of the new Beefy Crunch burrito along with a release date, thus generating excitement for the new product. Taco Bell has also created lenses, with one of the most popular being one where you can give yourself a “taco head”.

The retailer Wet Seal successfully used the Story feature of Snapchat by identifying a 16-year-old blogger with an internet following, then turning over their Snapchat account to her for two days to highlight their products. In those two days, they gained “9000 new followers and 6000 views of the ‘My Story’ “ 13

An example of a brand that understood the weaknesses of the Snapchat platform is the World Wildlife Fund. WWF knew that there is no way for users to “like” their photos or share with others, so they encouraged users to take screenshots of the photos they liked, and share them with their friends via other social media channels. By doing this, they could see how many “likes” they received for each photo based on number of people who took screenshots.

Channel integration-

Snapchat currently doesn’t integrate as well as other channels. The only way to integrate other media channels with snapchat is the memories feature. Once a photo is saved to your memories in snapchat,

you can export it to 22+ media platforms with Facebook, Instagram and Twitter being several of the social media channels on the list. The downside to this feature is you first must save the photo to the memories area and go back to export as opposed to being able to export directly from the picture or video after taking it. Twitter for example, gives you the ability to export a photo directly into a tweet. You can include both the caption and location and it will post onto your twitter account with the picture and information.

Another good integration with snapchat is the app Bitmoji. Bitmoji is a personal avatar emoji of yourself where you can edit hundreds of features to personalize an emoji of yourself. Snapchat purchased Bitmoji therefore giving the users of the apps a special feature in that using Bitmoji in snapchat unlocks a special “friendmoji” feature with two-person emoji of you and the user you are snapchatting with. Brands might use this feature to create their own Bitmoji and invite users to connect with them using the friendmoji feature. This fun feature might be a good way to get people to add the brand to their friends list.

Overall, Snapchat has made many improvements over the last few years, and could potentially become a much bigger player in the social media market as they add features and enhance their capabilities.

1. Shontell, A. (2013, November 06). Now All Of Snapchat's Investors Are Being Sued By The Man Who Says He Was The Third, Ousted Founder. Retrieved January 13, 2017, from http://www.businessinsider.com/reggie-brown-sues-snapchat-investors-2013-11

2. Spiegel, E. (2012, May 9). News – Page 7 – Snap Inc. Retrieved January 13, 2017, from https://www.snap.com/en-US/news/page/7/

3. Vaynerchuk, G. (2016, January 29). The Snap Generation: A Guide to Snapchat's History. Retrieved January 13, 2017, from https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/the-snap-generation-a-guide-to-snapchats-history/

4. Bell, K. (2016, December 22). How Snapchat completely dominated 2016. Retrieved January 15, 2017, from http://mashable.com/2016/12/22/snapchat-in-2016/#AkxKwLXL3OqP

5. Smith, C. (2017, January 07). 100 Amazing Snapchat Statistics. Retrieved January 13, 2017, from http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/snapchat-statistics/

6. Bell, K. (2016, July 18). Yes, your parents are on Snapchat, but that's actually a good thing. Retrieved January 13, 2017, from http://mashable.com/2016/07/05/snapchat-after-parents/#uIl1vKEkASqW

7. Kolowich, L (2016, April 27) 10 of the Best Brands on Snapchat Right Now (And Why They're So Great). Retrieved January 14, 2017, from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/snapchat-best-brands#sm.00000gnxkyvl37cr2zo7u5mtnx9q3

8. Cicero, N. (n.d.). 4 Important Snapchat Metrics Your Brand Should Be ... Retrieved January 16, 2017, from http://www.bing.com/cr?IG=17B6CCB02C5E4652B798D967B21C3407&CID=376179E9E7866D73013C73E5E6B76C50&rd=1&h=tQLHas-YTw_R3deqoYbxdJLPBcxjo2wVEMEWZKQz9gQ&v=1&r=http%3a%2f%2fwww.convinceandconvert.com%2fsocial-media-measurement%2fsnapchat-measuring%2f&p=DevEx,5087.1

9. Vasquez, N. (2016, August 15). 11 Examples of Branded Snapchat Filters That Worked. Retrieved January 14, 2017, from https://medium.com/comms-planning/11-branded-snapchat-filters-that-worked-94a808afa682#.s7pzcbpmx

10. Top 5 Snapchat Campaigns by Innovative Brands. (2016, March 18). Retrieved January 14, 2017, from http://keyhole.co/blog/top-5-snapchat-campaigns-by-innovative-brands/

11. Simpson, Jack. "Five seriously creative Snapchat campaigns and their results." Econsultancy. N.p., 27 Aug. 1970. Web. 14 Jan. 2017.

12. O’Callaghan, R. Retrieved January 14, 2017, from https://mediasite.video.ufl.edu/Mediasite/Play/ddef71890491405c8d7d72a2a6f875e11d?catalog=ebf0ec08-b8db-46f8-b410-61d71291c2cc “Social Media Channels Strengths and Weaknesses” Lecture

13. Bulygo, Z. (n.d.). How Brands Can Take Advantage of Snapchat (Infographic). Retrieved January 16, 2017, from https://blog.kissmetrics.com/how-brands-can-use-snapchat/