Snapchat: How Businesses Are Winning Audiences 10 Seconds At A Time

With millennials expected to account for 30 percent of all retail sales by 2020, this generation has quickly become a focus point for marketers. Recent research reveals that millennials tend to trust brands more when they use social over traditional advertising, making it imperative for businesses to look to social media as a way to capture the attention of this demographic.

Snapchat, the third most popular social app among 18 to 24-year-olds according to Comscore, is a mobile-only messaging application that allows users to capture and send photos and videos, which are promptly deleted 10 seconds after friends and followers receive it. Since its launch, the app has added several new features, including messaging, video chat and “Snapchat Stories.”

As of August 2014, Snapchat reported its 100 million monthly active users are sending over 700 million photos and videos per day. As the popularity of the app continues to grow among users under the age of 24, businesses have begun to take notice. According to Snapchat, the average user checks his or her account 14 times per day and the app has become a mainstream means of communication for many of its users around the world. The level of engagement on this free app has proven very appealing to brands vying for attention among the extremely active user base.

Brands that are already using Snapchat and receiving top nods from both the audience and the marketing industry include Taco Bell, McDonald’s, the National Basketball Association, Acura, Rebecca Minkoff, Heineken and GrubHub.

How Brands Can Use Snapchat

Brands that are already using Snapchat are doing so in many different ways, specific to their creative efforts and product type. The possibilities for brands on Snapchat are only limited by the imagination, but the following presentation highlights some of the most popular, proven engagement techniques used on the app thus far.