How to Profit from Snapchat

All successful social media platforms have gotten the attention of companies and businesses as a way to turn a profit. Take Facebook for example. A quick scroll through my news feed shows an ad for --- that 8 of my friends have liked and another video with a fun blurb about ---. Even celebrities are Facebook interactive as a way to engage their audience and increase their following. Twitter is similar where almost every popular product has an account and frequently tweets promotional content.

Snapchat is a rising social media app that has surprisingly stuck around for the past three years. If you’re over 25 its unlikely that you use Snapchat but this form of communication is almost ubiquitous among high school to college aged groups. Snapchat has approximately 200 million users, which is a reasonably large group to tap into for a profit. For those who are unaware, Snapchat’s main platform is a mobile app to send pictures or short videos to friends. The unique aspect is that these pictures need to be taken at the time and can only be viewed for a limited number of seconds before they disappear forever. Additionally, users can post this media to their “story” and share it with all of their followers for 24 hours.

As users go through their friends stories they might run out of content or want to see something more exciting. Here comes the concept of ‘discover’ on Snapchat. Advertisers can post their own content in a similar form to stories for all of Snapchat’s users to view. These ‘discover’ advertisers include CNN, Comedy Central, ESPN and more. They can instantly tap into that customer base of impressionable teenagers and share quirky and humorous videos. Furthermore, Snapchat integrated the use of geotags on photos. After a photo or video is taken a user can flip through a couple overlays to place on the bottom of the screen. This can be location based, too. For example, last week Stevens had a geotag with a picture of its logo and the duck mascot. If I was a high school student visiting Stevens, I can post a picture with that geotag to tell all my friends that I was there. This is a paid advertisement but users like it because they can tell all of their friends where they are.

There are even more ways for celebrities and other groups to get involved without paying for advertising space. From a small survey of my acquaintances, I realized that most users are ‘friends’ with celebrities and frequently watch their posted stories. Kylie Jenner is one celebrity that seems to have mastered Snapchat as a tool for reaching out to her fans and growing a fan base. She’ll post a few times throughout the day updated her friends on her activities and therefore increase their knowledge of her and increase her name recognition. Another example is the plastic surgeon known as “Dr. Miami”. This doctor will post many videos per day of his procedures. He will share the before/after photos and even show videos of his surgeries. By doing this he is growing a fan base at no cost and is probably improving his business.

There is some benefit to mastering Snapchat and gathering the attention of its users. One important quality is the near seamless blend of sponsored content with unsponsored posts. There might not be a direct payout but businesses and celebrities can increase popularity on this platform.

Written by Kyra Pastore

Works consulted: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/061915/how-snapchat-makes-money.asp