Guide to Snapchat Marketing to Younger Audiences

Snapchat is an application that you can use to send instant photos and videos to friends. Snapchat is now being leveraged by businesses looking to target a younger audience. Is this platform actually effective when it comes to targeting younger audeinces? How can businesses use Snapchat to aid in their marketing efforts? Read on to find out.

The Data

Looking to the data to say whether or not an app is a hit is usually a good place to start. Snapchat's core audience is between 13 and 25 years of age. 70% of Snapchat users are women and 18% of iPhone users are on Snapchat. Users of Snapchat send 400 million snaps a day (whoa!) and Pew Research estimates that Snapchat has 26 million users in the United States.

Growth

Snapchat took off towards the end of 2012 into 2013 growing from 6 millions snaps a day to 150 million by April 2013. That is quite a leap in just one year.

Practices

Businesses can use Snapchat marketing for a multitude of different purposes, including: contests, new product intros, coupons, a look behind the scenes, new team member introductions and videos. Businesses looking to set up a Snapchat can follow this quick guide:

• Create an account and complete your profile.
• Make sure to promote your Snapchat on your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and so on.
• Give your followers meaningful visual content to enable them to engage with your brand.
• Offer contests, sneak peaks and coupons to reward your followers and give them a reason to follow you.
• Snapchat has a feature called My Story to help you leverage and engage your audience instantly.

Things to remember:

• Images and videos on Snapchat are only available for 10 seconds, then they disappear.
• Follow this sequence to make your snaps more attractive via the 'Special Text' and 'Replay'. SETTINGS > MANAGE > SMART FILTERS.

Businesses on Snapchat

Heineken: Heineken used Coachella Music Festival in California to leverage interest from its younger audience by giving attendees sneak peaks at the surprise acts at the music festival.

MTV: MTV attracts teens to Snapchat by sharing raw videos of its stars giving users a personal and live experience with celebs.

Mashable: Mashable takes advantage of the Snapchat platform to show behind the scenes footage from their offices, snapping pictures of their office culture.