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Snapchat rebrands as Snap Inc + How to market on Snapchat

By Snap Agency September 28, 2016

We can’t help but admire our namesake Snapchat’s ambition as it enters into the Camera game with its rebrand as Snap Inc. They’re doing this at the same time as their first product comes out – a pair of glasses coming out this fall called Snap ‘Spectacles.’ They will feature a camera that uploads 10-second circular videos to the Snapchat app via Bluetooth and their Smartphone.


Related Articles: 5 Reasons you should be leveraging social influencers, 10 best tools for connecting with social influencers, and The winning combination of Snapchat and SEO.


Why does Snapchat matter? 41 percent of all 18 to 34 year-olds are on Snapchat right now, and it’s growing rapidly with half of all new users being over 25.

Spectacles in Case

Fast facts about Snap Inc.’s first offering “Spectacles”:

  • $130 a pop prices them in the ‘novelty’ range like Amazon echo or Fitbit instead of up against category stalwarts like Google Glass which has been priced significantly higher.
  • They’re only designed to sync with one App at the moment – Snapchat.
  • Rather than cutting into companies who are going after augmented reality’s customer base, they would be a challenge to companies like GoPro instead, as they don’t have other deeper set of capabilities, other than a camera.

But how do marketers even get into the game with Snapchat? After informally polling a class of High School students in Chanhassen, Minnesota – (I had asked them what marketing they admired on social media, specifically Snapchat) they responded that they don’t consider Snapchat a social media platform. Rather than considering it Social Media, they think of it as primarily a messaging app.

A couple keys to marketing on Snapchat

  • If you can’t create a rabid following on Snapchat, work with a Snapchat influencer to incorporate your product into their Snap stories
  • Work on finding a recurring series that only requires 20 minutes a day into your social media marketing routine – recognize most are on Snapchat for entertainment value, not always to soak up your industry knowledge.
  • Ask people on all of your social media channels to use your hashtag, and then save and upload it to Instagram and Twitter as well to enter a contest. (More keys to marketing on Snapchat on the bottom half of this post)

Iconic Moments in Sunglass History.. with Snap Spectacles

 

Neo with Spectacles on.. What if I told you Snapchat rebranded to Snap Inc. and is now a camera company[bctt tweet=”What if I told you Snapchat rebranded to Snap Inc & is a camera company w Spectacles pic.twitter.com/6w6zJQTNYh https://www.snapagency.com/blog/snapchat-rebrands-snap-inc-market-snapchat/ ” via=”no”]

Tom Cruise in Snapchat Spectacles

[bctt tweet=”Cheap enough to be a novelty – but will Snap Spectacles really take off? pic.twitter.com/CczV6nrQGZ https://www.snapagency.com/blog/snapchat-rebrands-snap-inc-market-snapchat/” via=”no”]

 

Jackie O - Meme Snapchat Spectacles

[bctt tweet=”“Only Jackie-O could make Snap Spectacles look good” – Snapchat rebrands as Snap Inc. pic.twitter.com/7zceixiAHE https://www.snapagency.com/blog/snapchat-rebrands-snap-inc-market-snapchat/” via=”no”]

Our take on Snap Spectacles

They aren’t particularly good looking, but maybe people won’t really care because they’re kind of a toy. Two things Snap Inc. would need to do to break open the market even more? Make the glasses look a little bit more ‘anytime’ appropriate, and extend those videos to as long as someone might want.

Imagine celebrities who are able to sell subscriptions to follow them around on their day to day lives, and extending those who are ‘superfans’ to be part of their mundane experiences too. You and I may not be particularly interested in this – but whole communities, who have thrived in places like Instagram, Twitter, and Periscope would now be able to geek-out and pay for the privilege.

 

How to Market on Snapchat

With a platform like Snapchat, it may be a good idea to determine what’s particularly noteworthy about your offerings at the moment first, rather than trying to promote a more obscure offering. When the summer starts Starbucks get’s a massive new influx of customers drinking their Frappuccino’s, and so when they went the filter route – they new allowing people to express their love of this particular drink would give them the biggest bang for their buck with a ‘Snap Sponsored Lens.’

Things like Snapchat filters and Snap Ads (10-second spots between Snap Stories) are probably the easiest ways to get into the game quickly on the paid side.

Snapchat Filters

What’s great about ‘on-demand’ Snapchat filters is that you can purchase them for a particular event and only in the area you’re trying to promote for fairly cheap. So at $75 for a fair or convention size, this is a very reasonable way to get people excited and offer a bit of unique value at your event.

A great example might be a music festival, where a food truck could make a really cool filter for the festival and pop in a little promo for their truck – effectively helping festival go-ers with a cool filter and probably making them think long and hard about their delicious food if they do it right.

Snapchat Filter

Snap Ads

Snap video ads had been priced as of recently at $40-$60 for cost-per-thousand impression, though the recently added Snap ads between stories are likely cheaper now. Since it’s an auction-based system, big events like sports championships and holidays drive up the cost-per-thousand impressions significantly.

Snap Sponsored Lenses

This is likely not in small to mid-sized businesses price range – but Adweek has said the Snapchat lenses can cost from $450k to $750k when there’s a big event. Woof.

Snapchat Sponsored Lens Gif

 

To ramp up your Snapchat following if you have solid followings on other platforms:

  • Make your profile picture your snap code – so people can easily follow you.
  • Share your best Snap’s on Twitter and Instagram- and ask people to follow you on Snapchat for more.
  • Create a longer series of Snapchat stories – and only upload one to Twitter and/or Instagram to catch people’s interest and have them follow you on Snapchat.

 

We wish the best for Snap Inc. and invite you to connect with us if you’re in need of Social Media Marketing – we use a unique blend of automation, influencers and live engagement to build brands followings.