#spac3media

By now most of you’ve heard of Snapchat, it’s a new social media platform that turned down a $3 Billion dollar offer from Facebook. Snapchat has a very loyal audience that skews towards the millennial demographic of teens between the ages of 18-24. At first, many brands were unsure of the value of using Snapchat in their social media strategy, but as Snapchat has been around for a bit longer now, more and more brands are now beginning to utilize Snapchat to reach their target demographic. With the variety of updates that Snapchat has made since its launch, Snapchat has given marketers more and more ways to utilize its platform. First, with Snapchat stories, it gave marketers a way to connect with audiences on a one-to-one basis, which is hard to find anywhere else.

Instead of photos disappearing within seconds, Snapchat stories allows the snap to last a full 24 hours and allows users to essentially build a story of the day’s events. With its latest update, Snapchat added video and text message chatting last week, which could give brands additional tools for in-application marketing. Also, when two people in a chat are present, they can share live video streams, these streams can be one-sided or both.

So the question is, should you try Snapchat? There are many reasons to try Snapchat. Currently, there are not too many brands using it and the ones that do participate such as Taco Bell, have seen incredible buzz for their campaigns. Snapchat is also more personal and less “salesy” which allows brands to connect more personally with their followers. There are numerous ways to take advantage, if you were a retailer, you could have a Snapchat exclusive sale, its free, easy, and allows for the message to go viral.