“Snapchat is the most personaland direct form of communicationso it’s especially powerful,” saysGregory Littley, a lifecaster and cre-ative strategy lead for Iced Media.“You must bring a unique story-telling aspect to Snapchat — thinkabout if there’s a secondary story orsomething unique that a brand has-n’t been able to communicate else-where.”

As part of Social Media Week2015 New York, Littley led an“Ephemeral MessagingMasterclass” on Snapchat, thephoto messaging application thatallows users to take photos, recordvideos, add text and drawings andsend them to specific recipients inthe form of “snaps.” Users also set atime limit — up to 10 seconds —for how long recipients can viewmessages. Once sent and viewed,they disappear from the recipient’sdevice and from Snapchat’s servers.

Currently, there are more than100 million monthly active users onthe platform and more than onebillion “Snapchat Stories” viewedper day. The app started out as peer-to-peer but is now peer-to-manywith the arrival of the “Stories” fea-ture, where influencers and celebri-ties often post snaps. Additionally,there is a new “Discover” feature,which is available to media partnersand content publishers — CNN,Warner Music, Food Network andESPN are several companies experi-menting with it.

And the arrival of the new“Snapcash” feature allows users tosend payments to one another.

Brands and communications

professionals are beginning toleverage their presence on themobile app in order to reach mil-lennials and share stories in themoment. While brands still post onother social outlets and platforms,they are using Snapchat to roll outexclusive or limited content. Also,sponsored stories have the potentialto reach everyone who has a publicprofile.

Snapchat has given users theopportunity to editorialize worldevents such as Australia Day, whichshowcased a worldview of howpeople were using the app, andbrand integration such as theSamsung-sponsored AmericanMusic Awards livestream. Madonnaeven released a new music video forher song “Living for Love” via theDiscover feature, which was avail-able for 24 hours.

Creating a storyRemember to be

“choiceful” with thefeatures that you’reusing, Littley said. Agood Snapchat storyshould include the following:

1. Geofilters2. A drawing element

3. A video snap4. An image filter 5. Varied text size and colors6. Emoji placement

Think about where you areand how you’re broadcasting to fol-lowers with geofilters — similar tolocation settings on Instagram.Change the placement, size andcolor of your text. Use a drawingelement like a stylus so that your

text is neater andmore legible. Don’toveruse emojis — ifyou can say some-thing with an emojithen why write it?

“Right now,Snapchat is purelyan awareness tool,”Littley said. “It’s fast-

paced and there is quick adoption.In an effort to service the chatterthat evolves around the snaps, use amix of story view and screenshots.”

Leveraging a brandBecause of Snapchat’s nature

and the fact that photos disappearin an instant, there is more of anopen conversation. Once a brandapproves a story, Littley said, “it canpush forward and have more of an

open dialogue with the content cre-ator and the audience.”

Some suggestions on how todo this are tapping a YouTubeexpert or a blogger to help onboardyour Snapchat profile, launching aconversation calendar, editorializ-ing your content and integratingyour products. “It’s important whoyou reach out to and the legitimacyof their content,” Littley said.

It’s key to also think about alonger lead time since there cur-rently isn’t a “staging hub” forproducing content, so be carefulabout posting before the mes-sage is ready. Also, rememberthat third-party apps put yourbrands at risk, so it’s best not tolink across profiles.

Littley also provided thefollowing tips:

• Clearly translate yourstory for Snapchat’s specific plat-form and its viewers.

• Succinctly use video,images and text so that they areindicative of consumer behavior.

• Present live events andexclusive experiences when pos-sible.• Don’t “oversnap” — each

message should live for about twoseconds in a 10-snap story.

• Make sure your snaps can bedigested quickly.

Because it’s a closed network,“make sure you’re communicatingyour Snapchat activity on yourother social media platforms —promote it elsewhere and threadthat story throughout,” Littley said.“Hold out on a story and then ampit up on Snapchat — save two pho-tos of exclusive gallery for Snapchat,for example — make sure a little‘FOMO’ is mixed in there too.”

And if you don’t have themeans to post to Snapchat everyday, “then make it an event andservice people with a very interest-ing, solid piece of content less oftenfor more of an effect. Showcase orsupport the brand in a specific wayon the platform to further thebrand connection. There is no oneanswer for any brand.”

social media

14 May 2015 TACTICS

Momentary Messaging How to Maximize Snapchat for Storytelling By Amy Jacques

With easy access to theInternet via widely availablesmartphones, 92 percent of teensreport going online daily, includ-ing 24 percent who are connected“almost constantly,” a new studyfrom the Pew Research Centerfinds. Nearly three-quarters ofteens have access to a smart-phone, and more than half ofthose ages 13 to 17 say that theygo online several times a day.Defying earlier reports of itsdecline among the demographic,Facebook is still the most popu-lar social media platform for teens, and the one that they use mostoften. Forty-five percent of boys visit Facebook, compared to 36 per-cent of girls.

Half of teens are using Instagram, and nearly as many use

Snapchat, the survey says. At 23 percent,girls are more likely to use Instagram thanboys (17 percent). Teens ages 15 to 17 aremore likely than younger teens to useFacebook, Snapchat and Twitter. Girlsdominate visually oriented social mediafor sharing, while boys usually own gam-ing consoles and play video games, Pewfinds.

Middle- and upper-income teenslean toward Instagram and Snapchat,while those from less-well-off householdsoften use Facebook. Some 88 percent ofteens have access to cellphones or smart-phones, and 90 percent of them exchange

text messages. The survey reports that a typical teen sends and receives30 texts per day, through telephone-company systems and also viamobile-messaging apps such as Kik or WhatsApp. — GregBeaubien

Study: With Smartphones, Some Teens Are Online ‘Almost Constantly’

Amy Jacques is the managingeditor of publications for PRSA.A native of Greenville, S.C., sheholds a master’s degree in artsjournalism from the NewhouseSchool at Syracuse University.She also holds a bachelor’sdegree in advertising from the

University of Georgia’s Grady College and a certificate inmagazine and website publishing from New York University.

Snapchat by the Numbers• There are more than 100 million

monthly active users on the platform. • There are more than 1 billion Snapchat

Stories viewed per day. • The target demographic for the plat-

form is users ages 15-25.• Seventy percent of Snapchat users are

women. • One-third of the entire user base (40

million) lives in the United States.• 120 million users are sharing more than

700 snaps per day, which is more than thecombined original content on Instagram andFacebook. — Gregory Littley/Snapchat

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