How Brands Are Using Snapchat Stories and Discover
As of 2019, Snapchat has 190 million daily active users. Snapchat is an incredible platform for connecting with your friends, family members, and even strangers who have similar interests. But there’s a lot more to the Snapchat platform than you might think, such as Snapchat Stories and Snapchat Discover. Discover, in particular, provides valuable marketing for businesses interested in expanding their user base.
Here are some tips on how to best use Snapchat and some of its most popular features for your marketing strategies.
How Brands Are Using Snapchat Stories
A Snapchat Story is a compilation of images and videos from a single day, often with notes and comments interspersed. At any time, you can add images and videos to your Snapchat story, and your followers can review everything that happened to you on that day. Brands can update customers on their current products and sales, highlight events such as volunteering, and post teasers for new products. Marketers can quickly catch up with other brands and compare their events and marketing.
By encouraging your users to view your stories, you can maintain your relationships with them.
Taco Bell was able to create a unique, whimsical campaign by posting regular Snapchat stories. As one of the first brands to embrace Snapchat stories, Taco Bell moved into relatively uncharted territory. Most marketers prefer “evergreen” content, rather than content that is ephemeral. But Twitter and Snapchat have both proven that this type of “living content” can be quite effective. In Taco Bell’s case, it was able to use its Snapchat Stories to highlight new products, new events, deals, and discounts, all of which brought in immediate interest.
Similarly, Amazon has used its stories to push timely deals and promotions to its followers, but differently. Amazon’s account emphasizes the exclusivity of its Prime membership and often drives sales solely to its followers. By doing this, it creates a value proposition: its customers feel as though they are getting something special, and as though they are “in on” something unique. Offering exclusive sales and promotions encourage customers not only to continue interacting with the brand but also to remain active on the Snapchat account.
Social media has always been a way for brands to develop uniquely personal relationships with their customers. Though Snapchat Stories may not remain longer than a day, they’re an incredibly valuable method of pushing information directly to customers, building existing brands, and locating new clientele.
How Brands Are Using Snapchat Discover
Discover is a hub through which you can view Snapchat Stories, but it also includes large publishing companies such as CNN or Buzzfeed, as well as TV shows. If you’re interested in finding content that you think you’ll be interested in, Snapchat Discover is a fast and easy way to get an overview of everything that’s going on. If you want to get more followers for your business, you want to be visible on Discover.
Discover allows for advertising, just like any other streaming media channel. Large brands such as BMW, T-Mobile, and even Sony Pictures have been able to advertise successfully on Discover, in a way that is both thoughtful and engaging. Snapchat Discover lets you speak directly to the user and (perhaps most importantly) unlike banner ads and traditional advertising; these ads cannot be avoided or filtered out increasing their importance, as new apps and plug-ins are making it difficult for brands to advertise directly.
Discover is designed to offer users an assortment of current, curated publications, containing information regarding things they’re most interested in. Snapchat tries to connect users with accounts and shows they’ve interacted with before, and they can always follow specific Snapchat Channels to customize their feed, further allowing brands to influence particular customer demographics. Brands can select channels to advertise that most resonate with their user base.
Snapchat Discover includes:
Stories – At the top of the Snapchat Discover screen are all of your friends’ stories, so you can always connect with the brands and accounts that you’re following. You can click on your friends’ stories to review them, skipping through them one by one to update yourself in the goings-on of the day.
Publisher Stories – These are stories from publishing companies such as The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, The Washington Post, and The Food Network. These publishing companies put out interesting content and news through Snapchat, discovered through your Snapchat Discover feed.
Shows – Relatively new to Snapchat are the shows, which include shows from ESPN and E! News. These are video segments that are published directly to Snapchat. Shows will likely grow over time, as this area of the platform becomes more prominent and more substantial.
Our Stories – These stories are related to significant, live, public events that are currently going on, such as shows. Snapchat compiles stories from multiple people so that you can see a live event from various points of view. A community-focused section of Snapchat can lead to you finding people interested in your brand and its products.
All of these things can be found on the Snapchat Discover tab — and all of these are open to advertising content.
How Brands Are Using Snapchat’s Live Events
Famously, Sour Patch Kids was able to launch its Snapchat fame through harmless but amusing pranks. Snapchat is an excellent venue for timely, informational, and live content. Through its prank series, Sour Patch Kids was able to build up 120,000 new followers.
Live events are examples of a brand using Snapchat to build awareness. While most people already know that Sour Patch Kids exists, the branding serves to remind its audience that the candy is available — and to encourage them to make a purchase quickly.
Connecting to Subscriptions Live
Sometimes there are even live events on Snapchat. You’ll be able to see live events by looking at stories, there will be a “LIVE” notification on any event that’s currently going on.
• Press and hold on the snap.
• Tap “Get live updates.”
You’ll start receiving updates about this live event from then on. You can control the notifications that you receive in your settings, but you’ll stop getting notifications once the live event is completed. This is valuable for brands who want to keep an eye on and participate in live events, as often global live events may occur that brands want to connect with.
Both Stories and Discover are exciting ways that you can engage with the people following you. With Snapchat Stories, you can send information to your friends and followers regarding current events and deals. With Discover, you can improve your marketing reach and output. The most notable brands in the world are currently connecting to their audience through Snapchat, and it’s only growing in popularity and exposure.
Learn how Colling Media can help your brand with social media efforts.