08 Sep How can snapchat help your business?
Snapchat is becoming one of the most popular social media networks in the world; 100 million people are sending approximately 400 million snaps a day!
If you feel as if your business needs an additional angle of promotion to excite your customers, or you want to show your business at work, adding Snapchat as an additional advertising platform would be an excellent tool to help your business.
How to use snapchat?
Firstly, before we discuss how snapchat helps your business, it’s important to know how it works!
Step 1; download the app.
Sadly, there is not a desktop version of snapchat, so to use it for your business you must have a working smartphone.
Step 2; create account
1) After you download and open the app, you will find this home page. Click ‘sign up’.
2) You will then reach this screen. It is recommended to use your business e-mail so you can keep updated with your new platform. (Be sure to jot down the password too!)
3) You will then be asked to create a user name. It is advised to use the name of your business for this, as people will be able to search it; you want it to be the first thing people think of.
4) Then you must verify your phone number. This can link all your contacts to snapchat, so it is recommended to create the account on a phone which holds multiple links to your business – this would be a great start to building your followers.
Step 3; adding friends and going public.
You don’t want to spend hours accepting friend requests from customers; this will waste time. Instead, you can alter your settings so you become ‘public’. This means your story can be viewed by anyone who wishes to add you without you having to give consent to each one. You can do this by;
1) Click the tool symbol on the top right of your home screen.
2) Scroll down to ‘who can…’ and edit who can ‘view your story’ to everyone. This will enable people to add you and view your story straight away.
How to add a friend?
You can add a friend on snapchat by clicking ‘add me’ (see picture above) and typing in the user name. However, you can also scan a bar code. The bar code is the white ghost in the yellow box. If you angle your phone directly above someone’s bar code on snapchat, and press down on the bar code, your camera will scan the bar code and add the friend. Much faster! However, your customers won’t be able to scan your phone unless you are there, so it would be more useful to make your username as public as possible!
Step 4; getting to grips with sending a snapchat
The key feature of snapchat which makes it different from other social media platforms is that you communicate with friends via pictures. You take a picture, caption it at your own leisure and send it to either a specific person, a group of people or put it on your ‘story’, whereby everyone can see it. As a business, you will find that the most common feature you shall be using is the ‘story’. Stories last 24 hours, and can be replayed by your followers over and over within that space. You can swipe right after you’ve taken a picture of video, and find different filters to liven up your post. This is how you send a snapchat
1) Angle the camera to the thing you want to take a picture/video of. If you want a video, hold down the circle which you will find at the centre of the
2) One you have a picture/video, a menu bar will appear on the right-hand side, as well as options at the bottom of the picture.
3) If you simply click on the picture, a bar and a keyboard will appear Allowing you to add a caption. The ‘T’ on the right-hand bar will allow you to enlarge to font of the caption. The pencil allows you to draw on the picture, and the small peeling paper sign allows you to add stickers. The scissor symbol allows you to cut a certain element from your taken picture to create your own stickers, which you can use for other pictures. Lastly, the timer allows you to change the duration of the snapchat. The scale goes from 1-10, with the last option being infinity (meaning your picture won’t disappear until the recipient clicks away)
4) The symbols at the bottom of the page are editors. The arrow symbol allows you to save the picture/video to your camera roll, whilst the square with the + is a short cut, adding this video/picture to your story instantly. If you want to select multiple people or just one person, then you click the blue arrow.
When you have clicked the blue arrow, it will take you to a page looking like this. To select a contact, simply click on their name and it will select them. Your contacts will be listed alphabetically, however the people who you snapchat frequently will appear on ‘recents’. Over time, these will become ‘best friends’ if snapchatted continuously.
As you can see in the example, ‘Dan’ has been selected to view the snapchat. To send it to him, simply press the arrow in the bottom right corner. You can click multiple people, so if you wanted to send Dan and Gary the same picture just click on them both. Once you put your snapchat username out in the open and get followers, you can begin to post snapchats of your business! But what to you post? How on earth can snapchat help my business grow?…
Key ways in which Snapchat can help your business…
Snapchat can film live events from your business
Snapchat can almost act like a gateway into the realms of your business and what it does. For example, if you own a clothes line and have a catwalk event coming up, snapchat would be the perfect tool to entice viewers with your clothes (and make the evening look like a lot of fun!) Any event which you think a customer would be interested in is one worth putting up on snapchat; a different insight into your business is a unique selling point.
Snapchat makes the customer feel special
Giving a customer a ‘behind the curtain’ angle of your business events can make them feel like they are receiving knowledge that wouldn’t be disclosed online. Your snapchat community will feel more obliged to invest in you and keep updated with your business when you include them with ‘special’ footage.
Include contests, perks or promotions offers to keep customers engaged
Doing this will not only excite your customers, but it will keep them coming back for more! Giving them the opportunity to win prizes or certain perks will also help boost the reputation of your business. Asking them to put up a snapchat of them holding your product, or ask them to take to Twitter or Facebook and ‘share’ a link to one of your products could also help you create more sales!
Public figures
Many people listen to figures of authority, and whether they are a national phenomenon business on your snapchat would not only boost public interest in your business, but show you are a well linked and reliable company! It doesn’t have to be done often, but if you get the chance to use a public influencer, it wouldn’t go a miss!
Show your product
Sometimes it takes showcasing your product and how it works/looks to receive some people’s custom. Doing this, you are giving the viewer an exclusive and authentic view of your product, which may make them feel inclined to buy your product/hire your services.
Address Relevant Issues
Linking your product/services to relevant issues which people may have questions about will help promote your business. For example, if you run a skincare business, there are usually common questions which customers have regarding things such as skin types, acne, etc. If you integrate answers to these questions in your snapchat stories, you are not only reassuring the viewer that your product is right for them, but you are giving them valuable information.
You are now ready to use snapchat!