It’s real. I know, we marketers have to give social platforms some time before we invest a bunch of time learning how to use and optimize. But the time is now to start counting Snapchat in. If you’re in B2C marketing, you probably already reached this conclusion, but for B2B, you may have been avoiding.
Here are some reason why you can’t avoid the ghost any longer.
- 60% Of Snapchat Users Are Between The Ages Of 18 And 34 (hey, that’s the age where people work real jobs, and buy B2B products!), Snapchat
- There are now 150 Million Snapchat users! –Adweek And, if you apply the first stat – they’re not so much teenagers anymore. That’s a lot of buyers for you.
- 40% of Snapchat users are in the US and Canada, Fortune
- 10 billion video views every day, Digital Trends
- There are now more Snapchat users than Twitter users
- You want to reach millennials, right? “Facebook (including Messenger) remains the most popular social platform among Americans 12-24 years old, with 32% saying they use Facebook most. Snapchat is second with 26%, far outpacing Instagram at 17%.” Convince and Convert
- There are very few B2B campaigns happening on Snapchat today. Advertising is dominated by B2C – this is your chance to stand out!
So where do you begin with marketing on a platform where messages disappear after 24 hours? Here are 15 ideas on how you can do this for B2B:
- Recruiting millennials? Post daily about what it’s like to work at your awesome company.
- Employee takeovers – add a more personalized approach to showing how great your company is, let one employee a day “take over” your Snapchat account and discuss what it’s like to work at your company and how much they love their job.
- Employee pets – Do you have an office dog, or employees who work from home with their pets – snap about it!
- Cover company events with live interviews with speakers and play-by-plays of live presentations
- Cover industry events the same way – give your followers a taste of the event they couldn’t make it to by being their eyes on the ground to all the action at the show
- Product demonstrations – Videos are a HUGE part of Snapchat–see the 10 Billion number above. Give potential buyers sneak peeks of the coolest features of your products (keep the salesy-ness to a minimum, this is fun).
- Product sneak-peeks – What’s coming out soon? Give your followers that exclusive experience of seeing behind the curtain to the work in progress.
- Doodle your… – Snapchatters love to be-dazzle and doodle up pictures. Ask your followers to snap a pic of something relevant to your brand or product and post a doodled version. Offer prizes for the best doodle.
- Holiday cards – Create a holiday card (be creative, try Flag day or donut day) that Snapchatters can screencapture, doodle and share with their followers.
- Keep the engagement going with teasers for tomorrow – With messages that disappear every day, encourage your followers to check back for something cool tomorrow.
- Client takeovers – Do you have a great client advocate? Let them takeover your Snapchat account and post about your product for a day, demonstrations, interviews with their other employees – your followers will feel the love.
- Interview industry experts – Videos are super short on Snapchat, so it can be easier to get influencers and experts to say a few words on camera.
- Feature your CEO commenting on an industry change or event.
- Use the geofilters advertising feature to do a super targeted marketing campaign. Hint, you can target a single building and the cost is pretty minimal. Could be useful for Account Based Marketing. Bonus – you don’t need to have a big following to reach a lot of people this way.
- Use geofilters to advertise at a specific event.
Companies like Gatorade and Taco Bell are using Snapchat advertising to push their brands forward, but no one is talking about the tremendous B2B potential. Think outside the box. You want millennials to buy your products, you want them to work at your company and you want them to have a great time doing both. This is the platform they are using so you should too!