Snapchat is a new kid on the block as far as B2B marketing is concerned. As with any new trend, few marketers have jumped onto the Snapchat bandwagon, save for early adopters like the First American Merchant. And others are just outright reluctant to add this disappearing-video messaging mobile app to their repertoire.
What could be the reason for this reluctance?
Snapchat’s biggest majority of users – 71 percent to be precise, are aged south of 25. Not very many business execs are aged that young, and this is perhaps impacting on the decision by many B2B marketers to be reserved about using the app.
The reluctance could as well be coming from the fact that these marketers just got comfortable with Instagram filters. They are perhaps content with Instagram for their mobile marketing initiatives.
B2B marketers might as well be reluctant to join Snapchat simply because they don’t understand the relevance of some of its distinctive features. The app for instance has selfie lenses that turn you into a puppy or a ghost. This might be making little sense to a B2B marketer.
Nonetheless, there are a few facts that marketers should understand about Snapcht.
For starters, story is king in any successful marketing event. And Snapchat is currently one of the best networks to tell a story:
- It’s completely mobile, and mobile is the most handy and popular medium through which people visit the internet and access online services.
- Snapchat is inherently video heavy. It’s optimized for video, which is the best way to tell a story. Images are generally more effective in telling a story than text, but videos make the stories alive with motion and visual appeal.
- Snapchat helps you tell stories much quickly to an engaged audience. The images or video (Snaps) typically disappear after a couple of seconds of viewing or after a count of 24 hours on the app’s Stories section. As such, users tend to be more engaged with Snapchat content than on any other platform.
Added to these facts, here are some statistics that show Snapchat is potentially a great B2B marketing tool.
- Snapchat’s popularity among the business community is on the rise, with 22% of ad execs planning to advertise on Snapchat in 2016.
- Ads placed on Snapchat are viewed up to one million times each day.
- About 60% of all smartphone users have joined Snapchat.
If you haven’t already started using Snapchat for your business then no time would be better than now to give it a try. It might just be the next biggest thing in B2B marketing.