Basic Features

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

Screenshots

So, when Snapchat started out, they really wanted the content itself to disappear. However, now we have to use screenshots to make sure that content can be saved as well as notify users if their content is saved.

Marketers can utilize the screenshot abilities as a way to highlight promo codes. You can say, “Screenshot this next Snap,” and then include a promo code there, and then that way, you can see how many people screenshotted it, and then used the promo code.

Views

Views are another in-app feature that helps marketers out so much. This is because you want to learn who your audience is, as well as you want to see how they’re viewing the content. Are they staying on the whole time? Are they dropping off in certain areas? You want to know that. That’s the key to the bread and butter of using data for your Snapchat Stories to create better-optimized content.

Memories

In the beginning, Snapchat was all about ephemeral content that went away. But, Memories transformed the ephemeral nature of Snapchat. Memories is a smart camera roll alternative, where you can import your Snaps, search by caption or recognized objects, creatively embellish and reshare clips, and keep sensitive content “for my eyes only.”

Benefits

The benefits to marketers include the following:

• You can post photo and video content that has been captured outside the Snapchat app.
• You can post content from your camera roll that can be uploaded onto Snapchat.
• You can use #tbt promo codes and high-quality content.
• It adds element to your content strategy that helps users feel more connected to your brand.
• You can create branded content on other platforms and post it onto Snapchat.
• You can save content into Snapchat and easily share for later use.
• You can cross-promote your Snapchat content onto other marketing channels (such as YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram).
• It reduces the need to post in real time.
• You can diversify your content by having a mix of real-time content and memories.

Our Stories

Our Stories are a collection of Snaps submitted from different Snapchatters throughout the community. They are collected, and categorized to capture a place or event from different points of view. This way, you can view geolocated stories and learn what is happening in those areas and demographics that is utilizing Snapchat there as well.

This feature is beneficial to marketers in a variety of ways:

• Go viral: You can go viral as your content is seen by many. If you average 50 people a Snap in your regular content, with Our Stories, you can get up to 50,000 people in views depending on the story itself.
• Participate: You can participate in a larger story, and in doing so, connect with others in your area. You can follow them and then add them to your community.
• Learn: Third, you can learn how others are producing content around you and you can see how they’re creating Snaps. You can find creative inspiration from their content. You can also see what kind of content gets chosen for the larger audience. So, you can mirror that in your own content, so you can be part of Our Story.

Campus Stories

Snapchat is very big within Generation Z. Campus Stories are a special Our Story, which is created specifically just for college campuses. Only Snapchatters whose phones indicate that they are in or around a campus, or within the last 24 hours, able to post and view the Campus Story.

You will need to activate your location services to enable Snapchat to determine this. Remember that the accuracy of a geolocation’s information can be affected depending on the operating system and the applications used. For marketers, this is super important, because you can focus marketing efforts to a specific college, and you can learn how this demographic is using Snapchat.

Discover

Discover is a collection of channels from publisher stories, shows, or Our Stories to learn about how things are going on around the world. If you want to see what’s going on in the world, you can always explore Discover. Just swipe left from the camera to go to Discover. Here, you’ll find shows, content from publishers, and Snaps from creators and the community personalized for you.

To view a story in Discover, just tap it. To view the next Snap, just tap on the right side of the screen, or tap on the left side to go back. Swipe to skip to the next story in Discover. You can even swipe up to learn more. When you’re done, just swipe down to exit.

With Discover, you’ll never run out of new things to explore!

Live

On Snapchat, Live is a special event happening that you can watch live on Snapchat Discover. An example of this is watching the Olympics on Snapchat. The benefits of Live for marketers are you can connect with users all around the world watching the same content. You can create content that relates to the live content, and you know what is hot content out there.

To join, tap on a story that says “Live” to tune in. For longer events, you can also sign out to be notified when your favorite event is coming up. To do so, press and hold on a story and discover labeled live, and then tap “Get Live Updates.”

Face Lenses

Lenses add spice to Snapchat. They are special effects that are applied in real time using face detection, allowing users to watch their facial actions affect the lens on screen.

Lenses are available on both the regular camera and front facing camera. As lenses are often interactive, you may have to match a certain motion in order to produce a certain event. For example, open your mouth for the rainbows to continually waterfall out. There are featured lenses per day and they change regularly.

Benefits

Let’s take a look at how marketers can leverage Snapchat lenses to meet their marketing objectives:

• They can be used when taking selfies and photos and videos to diversify content.
• They add a fun element to the advertisement.
• There’s a large reach in impressions.
• They enhance the overall user experience of watching a story.

If investing in a business lens, you can reach accumulative Snapchat audience to promote your offering through their own storytelling capabilities.

World Lenses

Snapchat has been on the forefront of augmented reality and they do this with World Lenses. World Lenses are special effects that are applied in real time using detection, allowing users to watch a world in front of them and allow them to see the world brought to life through the lens on the screen.

Benefits

The benefits of World Lenses for marketers include:

• You’re able to add a fun element and showcase the augmented realities on Snapchat.
• You can get a better large reach and impressions because your audience is going to be so excited about what you’re creating.
• You can increase the overall user experience of watching a story.
• If investing in a business-use lens, you can reach a cumulative Snapchat audience to promote your offering through their own storytelling capabilities.

How to use the World Lenses

Here's how you use World Lenses:

• Open Snapchat to the camera screen.
• Use the rear-facing camera – tap the button in the top-right of the screen if you’re in selfie mode.
• Tap on any surface.
• A selection of different Lenses should appear at the bottom of the screen. Just swipe over to the World Lens you want to use.
• Tap it to switch between different options (like different captions or Bitmoji poses). You can also drag it to move it around or pinch your fingers in and out to change its size!

1:1 Chat

One-to-one chat is a very important aspect of Snapchat. It allows brands to communicate with their customers. This lends itself to a one-to-one relationship on the platform and is a new frontier in customer service. They can leverage this feature to connect with users on product feedback and brand messaging, and is also helpful for any crisis situation. You’re able to talk to your customers and learn what is going on and be able to communicate and let them know in real time any aspects that they need to know.

Snapchat does have a downfall with the platform in that Snapchat chats can easily disappear. You need to make sure you’re saving your content by tapping on the actual words and sentences. You can also video chat and send photos within the chat. This increases the relationship between brand and user. You will need to hit the telephone and video icon to do so. And in fact, you can actually leave a voicemail all within Snapchat.

Group chat

Snapchat allows for group chat, which has many benefits for marketers to engage and curate audiences. With group chat, you can choose up to 31 friends to stay in touch with and you can share the moment. Once you create a group chat, a group story is created. Group chats can be effective for targeted marketing to a specific audience. You can create a special promo code or product offering for your specific groups.

For example, you can have a group of elite shoppers or super fans. Now, with Snapchat, you can also include group video chat, which is up to 16 friends, and can conduct a video chat with each other simultaneously. This would provide a fun and engaging relationship with the group because you can hop on a video call to get FaceTime activities, and even include filters that will create amazing content and further their relationships.

The benefits of group chats for marketers include a group story, which creates a community between users, there’s relationship building, and an ease to message out to target users. The benefits of group video chats for marketers include face-to-face communications, and you can utilize the filters in a fun way.

Mentions

Just like in Instagram, there are mentions as well within Snapchat. Mentions allow users to tag friends in snaps uploaded onto stories. After you shoot a photo or a video within the Snapchat camera, you can add text to it and @ the username to mention them. When someone views your snap, they’ll see a More option, making them swipe up. This reveals title, showing people’s profiles info and an Add button. The tags don’t appear to trigger notifications for people mentioned, which helps with spam and bullying.

Benefits

There’s a lot of benefits to this for marketers:

• You can highlight users in content.
• You can make sure users see the actual content you’ve created
• You can increase discoverability for users, influencers, and brands.

Snap Maps

With Snap Maps, you can view snaps submitted to a story from around the world, and these can include sporting events, celebration, breaking news, and more. You and your friends can also share your locations with one another and see what’s going on around you.

Benefits

The benefits of Snap Maps for marketers include the following

• You can view what’s going on around you and see if you want to meet up to build better relations, so you can go from online to offline.
• You can see the storytelling aspects in various targeted areas around you.
• You can learn about the happenings around your city that you might not have known existed.
• You can find new Snapchat users to follow and connect with.

The bottom of the map screen, which is Explore, is a way to find new activities from friends and discover stories from all around the world. Friends can see explore updates when you travel, visit certain locations, or use a geofilter in your story. Your current locations, sharing studies also apply to explore, so you can update who sees your location on Snap Maps at any time.

Context Cards

Context Cards provide more information to users within Snapchat and are recognizable from snaps that say More and allow users to just swipe up. They include reviews from critics and customers, directions to the venue, hours of operation, phone numbers to contact, rides from ride sharing services, reservations at restaurants, websites for more information, and more snaps from around that area. When you submit a snap to our story, it can also show up on a Context Card of the location you’re submitting from.

Benefits

This feature is beneficial to marketers as enables direct response conversion because the content provided lets consumers makes decisions to go to your store or company, provide users information to make informed decisions. In doing so, consumers will look to Snapchat to learn more about companies and it’s imperative your information is in there.

You can learn more about the local competition by analyzing the Context Cards and reviews of your competitors.

Widgets and Extensions

Widgets and Extensions enable you to start a chat with friends right from your device’s home screen. This means that instead of digging a chat thread out of Snapchat, users can select their favorite friends, create Bitmoji widgets for them with their personal avatars, and click them from their iOS Today screen or Android home screen to launch straight into a chat with friends.

Benefits

The benefits of Widgets and Extensions for marketers include that there’s no need to copy and paste links into the chat, and you can always share things with friends on Snapchat right from your browser or from certain apps.

Snapcodes

Snapcodes are the next wave of QR codes. They are unique scannable codes that make adding new Snapchat friends and opening Snapchat content easier.

Benefits

Marketers should share their Snapcodes across various marketing channels to increase the number of followers that they get and increase brand awareness. They can also be used to show up your brand logo as an identifier across all your social channels, so users will know where to follow you on Snapchat.

Snapcash

Snapcash evolved when Snapchat partnered with Square to bring an eCommerce element to this platform. This is a way for Snapchatters to exchange money within the Snapchat contacts. You’re able to do this by linking your debit card to the app. Once Snapchat users have done this, they can send a Snapcash to anyone in their contact list who is eligible to receive Snapcash.

To execute, swipe into chat, type the dollar sign and amount, for example, $10, and hit the green button. This leads to actionable sales within the platform and will be highly useful for small businesses that have low price points for their product.

Spectacles

Spectacles are the hardware technology from Snap Inc. That is a camera which has 115-degree lens which is meant to more closely approximate how humans see. Since Spectacles record video snippets that are then saved to your Snapchat Memories, for marketers, Spectacles, provide a worthwhile investment because they can allow you to record more content from a different point of view than your mobile phone. Your users are creating more content since the act of taking a snap is a simple click on the sunglasses. Spectacles can increase your user-generated content if your followers send you their content. You then can post that onto your account to create a mixture of owned and user-generated content. To note, Spectacle snaps showcase in a circular manner as opposed to vertical video on regular snaps.

Using Spectacles

Follow these steps:

• After you’ve paired your Snapchat account with Specs, Specs connect to your phone wirelessly.
• When your phone is nearby, your Specs will automatically import Snaps to Memories in Snapchat.
• Tap the button on Specs once to take a 10-second video Snap.
• Tap the button again to extend the Snap to 20 seconds, and again to extend to 30 seconds.
• Then, you can send Snaps you took to friends, or post them to your Story.

You don’t need to have your phone nearby to take Snaps with Specs.