How 5 Top Brands Engage Using Snapchat

As one of the most popular and widely used social media channels there is no doubt Snapchat is a great platform to advertise your brand. This social media channel has grown a huge amount since its silent launch in 2011 and it is continuing to grow by introducing new features to keep it very much on the scene. With over approximately 400 million Snaps sent a day it can be a great way to reach individuals some brands may not reach on other social media. Below are 5 brands who successfully engage with their audience and deliver information in a different way via Snapchat. 

GrubHub

GrubHub were an early adopter of Snapchat and have managed to show what it means to be a successful brand on Snapchat. Over the years GrubHub have used the social media platform to recruit an intern, send special offers, funny doodles to entertain followers, giveaways and live event coverage.

In 2014 they used Snapchat to find an intern through a number of different snaps. They asked users to show why they should be the new intern by sending them your best doodle and then applying online. They wanted to target tech savvy individuals and this opportunity let the prospective employee show his or her humour and creativity. They also reveal discount codes to surprise and reward followers. They do this through a number of snaps, each one revealing a little more about the discount to keep followers keen and waiting for the final snap.


GrubHub engage with followers one-to-one, seven days a week and try to reply to the majority of the hundreds of personalised snaps they receive. Their activities on snapchat help to spread brand awareness and engage with followers and customers in the same ways they interact with each other. They also use Snapchat artists to spruce up the doodling and storytelling throughout the snaps.

WWF – #LastSelfie

Although this was back in 2014 I thought the #Lastselfie campaign from the WWF was worth a mention. The Danish and Turkish branches of the World Wildlife Fund used Snapchat to bring attention to the fact that 5 of the world’s favourite endangered animals are disappearing fast. The video for the campaign reads ‘In a way Snapchat is a mirror of real life. The images you see are transient, instant, unique, yet only live for a few seconds. Just like these endangered animals’. Using the popular selfie theme helped them to relate even more to a large proportion of Snapchat users.  The images disappear after 10 seconds, as the animals will do in real life if people do not take action to help. 

Quotes used with the images included “Better take a screenshot. This could be my #LastSelfie.” And “In 6 seconds, I’ll be gone forever, but you can still save my kind”.

This campaign was a huge success with a large increase in Snapchat followers. Thanks to an increased awareness about the charity, it took only 3 days to reach the monthly target. Screenshots which helped to spread the word were posted by 40,000 and seen by 120 million Twitter users in one week.

Taco Bell

This fast food giant really knows how to get attention and entertain its Snapchat followers. Taco Bell regularly posts snaps and campaigns. They often have different people in charge of the platform who use it to show different events they attend, campaigns, new products and more. 
Last valentines Taco Bell wanted to help out their loved up customers by offering a choice of virtual valentine’s cards to personalise and send on to another Snapchat user.

They began the campaign by uploading the following snaps to their story:

They published a number of simple, pun-filled virtual valentines cards for people to send to their valentine including these:
        
They also gave detailed instructions of how to personalise the images and send them to your valentine, a feature that would have been useful for those not so familiar with the platform. This helped to ensure that Taco Bell could reach a wider range of users rather than just the pro’s. The campaign was perfect for millennials who make up over half of Snapchat’s users and enjoy quirky marketing as well as Taco Bell’s food!

Pepsi Max ‘Chelfie’

Back in February Pepsi was one of the first UK brands to partner with Snapchat to bring a Sponsored Lens. To promote their cherry flavoured Pepsi Max they used the social media giant to turn selfies into ads with the introduction of the ‘Chelfie’. The “cherry-flavoured” filter was available for 24 hours on 14th February. It superimposed a can of Pepsi Max Cherry onto users images which was then poured into the Snapchatter’s mouth when they moved. It ended with a cherry explosion which covered the users face.

Pepsi wanted to show that it’s a digital-first and socially-led brand looking for new ways to engage with their audience. The Chelfie filter was very popular, with a huge number of people using the filter, as well as coverage on other social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. With around 10m snaps decorated with lenses reportedly sent worldwide each day it’s obvious large brands will become more involved.

McDonalds

When this brand giant joined Snapchat it was no surprise that they gained a few thousand followers within the first few days. McDonalds use Snapchat to spread news about new food, to give backstage insights at red carpet events and to introduce different celebrities to the brand. They began celebrity endorsement from early on when well-known American basketball player LeBron James was left in charge of introducing McDonalds followers to their new Snapchat.

As well as sending snaps, McDonalds use sponsored geofilters (which are only available in America) when you are near/in one of their restaurants. Users can add filters to their snaps with sponsored images including French fries, a double cheeseburger or hearts embedded with the Golden Arches.  As well as letting people know you’re in a McDonalds restaurant, these filters help to promote the brand further and potentially get more people to visit their restaurants.

So, is Snapchat really worth it...

As one of the most successful real-time communication apps and one of the leading social media platforms, i'd say yes it definitely is worth it. The concept of ‘Internet Everywhere’ suggests that nowadays online and offline are no longer separated; Snapchat helps to keep individuals’ online and offline lives connected at the same time. With their regular new feature updates and the availability of constantly changing filters and effects, Snapchat definitely won’t be going away anytime soon.