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With 30 million monthly active users, Snapchat is a social media platform that has recently gained a lot of traction. Major consumer brands, stars and athletes have all flocked to the new platform to share behind-the-scenes content and offer promotions and deals to their followers to great success, but is it worth incorporating into your content marketing strategy if you’re a B2B company?
What is SnapChat?
Snapchat is a photo- and video-messaging app which launched in 2011. It was created by a group of Stanford students who wanted a more secure way of sharing photos and memories in real-time with their friends. The uniqueness of Snapchat is that each photo and video that is sent only lasts about five or ten seconds before they disappear forever. It’s hugely popular amongst millennials and the temporariness of its content makes it an attractive and ‘safe’ platform for users to exchange racy or explicit photos. However, the way that users behave on Snapchat has changed as a result of the addition of ‘Stories.’
Snapchat Stories
Launched in 2013, stories is a feature which enables users to save multiple snaps taken within a 24 period and create a ‘Story’ of that day which can then be shared with all their friends. These stories function as a visual, virtual journal of that user’s day that can be viewed by their followers at any point before the day’s end when the story disappears. Major B2C companies have taken advantage of this tool to give their followers access to special moments in real time, such as the clothing brand Rebecca Minkoff who joined Snapchat to debut its Spring 2014 collection just moments before it appeared on the runway at New York Fashion week.
Stories offer brands a chance at a longer conversation than the usual 10 second restriction allows. Minkoff’s CEO told Mashable that: “We believe in a different approach. We believe the consumer is part of [Fashion Week], and that their inclusion is going to grow. The consumer has a voice and say in [our] brand, they should get special perks even if they can’t attend the show.”
Other major brands including Taco Bell and 16 Handles have successfully taken to the platform to offer flash deals and show-to-claim coupon snaps that suit the platform’s ephemeral format. Using these strategies B2C companies have been able to cultivate brand loyalty through the real-time interaction with consumers that Snapchat allows. However, the presence of B2B companies has remained almost non-existent on the platform. Why is this?
3 Reasons Why B2B Companies Aren’t on Snapchat
Young User Base – The typical Snapchat users are females between the ages of 13 and 25. For most B2B companies, this is not their target audience. Why waste your time learning to use the platform and updating it on a regular basis when prospective clients won’t see your content?
Return on Investment – Currently, it’s difficult for brands to effectively track their engagement on the platform. This is due to the hard limits on the type of content you can post. For marketing execs and CFOs who want to see a proven return on investment, this is a major red flag.
Explicit Content – Many users use the platform as a way to send and exchange racy photos. This has led to problems for companies, including Lynx, who receive ‘sexts’ from their fans in response to new content and stories they share. While Lynx has handled this problem with a hint of humour – they regularly respond to ‘sexts’ with images of their new Deep Space shower gel and tell users to clean up their act – not everyone will have the patience to respond to these fans in this way, especially when they can’t track how valuable their time on Snapchat has actually been.
Based on these findings, Snapchat is currently not a viable marketing channel for B2B companies. If it’s user base begins to change, then it may be a platform to keep an eye on in the future. In the meantime, I suggest not spreading yourself too thin with your content marketing strategy and instead focus your energies on maintaining your existing key platforms, including Twitter, to engage with your followers which provide proven results.
If you need help planning and implementing your content marketing and social media activity, give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247 or email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com. Marketing Fundamentals Ltd are a leading B2B Content Marketing Agency in London. We create Content and use Social Media to build relationships with your prospective and existing customers or supporters.
Best regards,
Karla McDougall
Digital Marketing Intern
Marketing Fundamentals Ltd
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