Snapchat has gained a reputation that is not ideal for the marketing world. Mashable writer Todd Wasserman says it best, "Taco Bell was one of the few brands to adopt Snapchat, a platform that has a reputation for sexting."
Big brands have taken it upon themselves to participate in the Snapchat phenomenon and introduce products with it. Snapchat recently released a new feature on the app called "Stories." These videos or pictures can last longer than 10 seconds (the max amount of time that a regular video or picture can last to be sent). Taco Bell used Snapchat back in April to announce th return of the Beefy Crunch Burrito.
Taco Bell has continued to use Snapchat for several other announcements as well as engaging their customers by driving them to the Snapchat app. Regardless if someone has a Snapchat account or not, Taco Bell is tweeting to their followers to stay tuned for a secret announcement on Snapchat. People who have never received a snap before are downloading the app to see what content they are missing out on. That would be a lot of snaps to send huh?
The simple facts about Snapchat? Photos and videos to be sent to your contacts list can last a maximum of 10 seconds. You have the ability to draw on them with various colors and type text to convey more of a message. You can add people from your contacts list and "follow" them. You must be following a contact in order to send or view a snap. Screenshots can be taken of a photo sent to your account but you must still be holding down on the photo long enough to take the shot. When taking and sending snapchats, you have the ability to download them before sending. There...that should be all the features.
The new stories feature let's the stories live within the app for 24 hours and then disappear to make room for new content. Snapchat explained the new stories feature as, "The end of your Story today is the beginning of your Story tomorrow. And each Snap in your Story includes a list of everyone who views it." If Snapchat continues with these Stories...they could monetize the snaps from big brands that are promoted to Snapchat users.
Are more big brands going to start using Snapchat as a way to push messages to their followers? Do you think that Snapchat will monetize their stories snapchat feature?
Side note:
Here's an interesting fact about Snapchat...they have an app for individuals under the age of 13? It's called Snapkidz. Snapchat has the rules for this app in their terms:
"Snapkidz includes the familiar interface for taking Snaps, captioning, drawing, and saving Snaps locally on the device, but does not support sending or receiving Snaps or adding friends and, since the experience is local to the user’s device, no Snapchat account is created."
Interesting....Stay up with their blog for more features and updates.
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