A little while ago now I joined Snapchat and I love it. It’s really fun and easy and I’m following some really interesting people. You can read some of my initial thoughts on Snapchat here.
Now that I’ve been using it for a while and am getting plenty of engagement – not to mention thoroughly enjoying watching snaps and creating them – I can see great stuff happening on Snapchat and so I thought it might be useful to share some ideas of things that you can do on Snapchat for your business. I haven’t tried all of these myself, but if I haven’t done it then I’ve seen it.
If you don’t know how to actually use Snapchat yet, then check out my free tutorial here!
Behind the scenes
This is pretty easy to do. Behind the scenes of your business – so what you’re up to, where you’re going, where you’re meeting people, things you notice while you’re working, how many tea breaks you have, what kind of biscuits you keep in the office, exciting post, talking about your projects, client work, admin… whatever it is that you DO – sharing that. The challenge is working out how to make it interesting, but I bet you can think of something. Draw smiley faces on envelopes, stick googly eyes on your coffee mug and “make it talk to you” (speak and then speed it up using the filters. Check out Mike the Cat on Joe Wilson TV or the chocolate teeth on Chocolate Johnny)I do a lot of behind the scenes, sneak peeks of parts of projects, showing different logo variations, talking about something that’s come up in a conversation – this is the main part of what my Snapchat is, and I get some lovely responses.
Takeovers
These are very popular. I’ve not done one (yet) but barely a day goes by where I don’t see a takeover on Snapchat. What happens is that you swap your login with someone else and snap on their profile while they snap on yours. This means that you can both reach a whole new audience – so be interesting, share some great content and give people a reason to follow you over on your own account. It also means that your followers can find someone new to follow – which is great!
Be creative
You can create stories using a combination of different features. Photos, videos, videos sped up or slowed down, filming ‘backwards’, using music, using text and drawings, using stickers and filters – there is a lot of scope for creativity and fun! Maybe you could combine some of these, or use the stickers to make a story. There are so many possibilities, with a bit of planning you could do something really great.
Share your wins
Something good happened? Snap it. You got a new client? Share it. You did some great work? Snap that. You blogged? Pop it on a snap. Someone gives you a box of chocolate? Share the chocolates ‘virtually’. Basically – tell people when something good has happened. I bet good things happen to you several times in one day. Probably more than you think – it doesn’t have to be something really big.
Mini rants
Sharing good stuff is great, but sometimes you might feel irritated by something and feel the need to let off steam! Snapchat is a good place for this. Where on other platforms you might feel that you can only show the positive stuff, Snapchat is fine for a bit of a moan. I wouldn’t overdo it, but if you fancy a rant, go for it. People who are especially good at this are John Lee Dumas who does a #JLDRant, and Hillel Fuld, who often has a mini moan about things irritating him.
Tutorials
Snapchat is a great place to show the process. To show how you start a project and how you get through it to the end – and you can teach short sections of this to your audience over a few snaps. Suze Ford shows her work really well this way, and people love seeing work in progress.
Have regular “sections”
You can use Snapchat like a TV show, maybe you’ll do the same thing every day, or on the same day each week – this is great because it gives people a reason to tune in. Gala Gil does Social Media News daily. Joel Comm does Ten Fast Snaps. You can also experiment with these really easily to see what works and what doesn’t. If it doesn’t work then it’ll be gone in 24 hours anyway and you can think of something new to try.
Show your life outside of work
Snapchat is about showing who YOU are, what you get up to, how you spend your time. Showing the you beyond your business. For me, this means that my business related snaps are interspersed with pictures of cakes and biscuits that I’ve made, and stuff to do with my kids.
Repurpose
This is my Snapchat Pinterest Board. I don’t share ALL my snaps here, just some of them. They’re a great shape for Pinterest! Snaps can definitely be repurposed in other places too – I often post mine to Twitter with my url (snapchat.com/add/YOURUSERNAME) or if they can be cropped easily they will also work on Instagram – but the content itself is also handy, say if you’re snapping on a certain subject, you might find that you could make a post out of that – especially once you’ve had some private conversations as a result and know what’s making your audience tick.
Q & A
When people have questions, you can answer them and have fun with it. One account that does this really well is Everlane who regularly answer questions, and they do a great job! It also makes it so much easier to create content if you have questions already. You can also ask questions and receive some answers – I did this recently and the answers were really helpful.
What do you, or could you share on Snapchat?