Written By: Louis Holzman
It’s a phenomenon that is quickly entering the adult and business community. I’m sure most of us by now are familiar with the now-iconic logo of a little white ghost against a bright yellow background: Snapchat. The original function of the fairly basic app was to communicate with friends via taking pictures that disappear in ten seconds or less. This is just background noise compared to what Snapchat has evolved into. What started as an app that was mocked as a pointless “teenager-only” app has now turned into the cutting edge of connection.
Snapchat no longer wants to be an app only adolescents use for nonsense. They want to be your phone, your go to app to communicate with anyone, over any medium. Since the initial disappearing pictures and videos, they’ve added in a texting feature, a video call feature, a phone call feature, 3D emoji, Geofilters that are now available to be made by anyone for any occasion. Personalized QR codes enables quick and easy way to scan a new friend onto your contact. They’ve also rolled everyone’s “stories” back to back to increase visibility. They are effectively putting a live broadcast platform, whether it is to a single individual, or out to the entire world at the tips of any individual with a smart phone.
How does this affect the business community? Take note at some big gurus in the industry like Gary Vaynerchuk, Grant Cardone, or Tai Lopez, you’ll notice their Facebook profile pictures are their Snapchat QR Codes. This enables your marketing team, or your personal brand to get out there at any moment to your audience no matter what you’re doing or where you are with a personalized touch, really connecting with your audience. There’s also a way to conduct a video call that works like a private live-stream: You choose the people you want to chat with and start shooting your video. Your guests can join with their own video or audio, or watch and text back. Unlike other forms of video messaging on the app, whatever you film can’t be saved to your phone. Talk about a unique conference call.
Now you know about it, so lets put it to use. It is good to understand that this app is used strictly on your mobile device, only captures real time data, and the longest that data can be displayed is for up to 24 hours (if you are using the story function) or less. Just like building any brand, whether it is personal or business, the owner(s) of the Snapchat account want to be providing their followers and viewers with relative and valuable content. This can differ depending on who you are and what your message is, but the strategy is all the same. Stay on top off current events, use Geofilters to let people know where you are, create feeling and emotion in what your followers are seeing; CONNECT.
We are not 100% certain how Snapchat will continue to evolve and impact business or personal brands, but it is very apparent they have made a push to the big boy table. The market share for screen time in social apps is crowded, they’ve made a voice for themselves and have only been able to expand and evolve as their users continue to grow. If you don’t have Snapchat personally, give it a try and see what the craze is about. I’m sure we will see more changes to come as 2016 keeps progressing forward. Those who follow these shifts and trends, may just find themselves capitalizing on the early adaption.
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