As with any social media platform, it’s paramount to understand the audience you are trying to reach and where they “hang out” online If you are trying to reach Millennials or Generation Z, you’re in the right spot with Snapchat. There are a lot of advertising opportunities with Snapchat, but typically the brands that can you see on the platform are big brands like Starbucks, Taco Bell, and CNN. However, there are still opportunities on Snapchat for small businesses.

Snapchat Stories

Snapchat Stories is a place on the platform where your brand can share authentically. Of course, there are paid ad options for Story spots that play briefly while a user is going through their personal Story feed. These paid ads get expensive fast. For the small business, there are free opportunities to post personal Stories rather than paid advertisements. These posts only last 24 hours, and they need to be personal rather than advertorial in nature. With some ingenuity however, a small brand can create compelling personal stories that are free to post and that will earn clicks.

Ideas for Free Stories

To create a free story, you need to think “inform and educate”, rather than “sell.” Consider these ideas:

• A tour of your office

• Videos of VIP areas of events

• Exclusive behind-the-scenes making of your product or delivery of your service

• The process of opening a new storefront

• Exclusive Coupon Codes

• Offer engaging contests i.e. “Best Snapchat doodle of a mermaid wins.”

Geographic Overlay

Briefly, a geographic overlay is a filter option for users that they can place on their Snaps if they are within a sponsored region. All you need to do is design an overlay. Send it to Snapchat for approval. Then you set up a campaign with the date range that the overlay should cover.

Say you were hosting the local annual beer festival and it’s going to be in a park. You set your overlay regions within the park, and you configure the opportunity for the duration of the event. It is $5 for an 8-hour slot for a geographic layover.

Snapchat Code

You can personalize your Snapchat code (which appears as the dots behind the Snapchat ghost icon) which is a free and easy way to brand your Snapchat. Warby Parker, a sunglasses, and glasses company has branded their Snapchat ghost code with glasses on the ghost.

The Downfalls of Snapchat for Small Businesses

1. One big downfall with Snapchat management is that there is only one administrator allowed at a time. One admin makes it challenging if you are a small business with multiple locations who wants to share posts from each locale.

2. Another difficulty with Snapchat is that there is no pre-scheduling. You post when you want it to go live, which puts added demands on your time. Most other platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram make it possible to pre-schedule posts. (Except Instagram stories which function similarly to Snapchat in this regard.)

3. And one last detractor with Snapchat is that it's hard to gain an audience or follower base, so if you’re looking to build followers for your brand, Snapchat requires a lot more time and effort than other platforms.

Whether you’re interested in Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Pinterest, or any other small business social media strategy, we can help. Contact Denver’s top social media marketing business, FiG, today for a free estimate.