Effective Snapchat Marketing

Summary

The Digital Marketing Podcast – Episode Summary

Episode Overview

Title: Effective Snapchat Marketing
Hosts: Ciaran Rogers, Daniel Rowles
Guest: Miri, Fanbytes
Date: January 30, 2018
Main Theme:
This episode focuses on demystifying Snapchat as a digital marketing platform, with expert guidance from Miri at Fanbytes, specialists in Snapchat influencer marketing. The conversation delves into why Snapchat remains an essential channel—especially for reaching young audiences—despite negative media narratives, and provides a tactical roadmap for brands wanting to succeed on the platform.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The State and Unique Value of Snapchat (02:39–08:49)

• What is Snapchat?
  It's a mobile-first social platform focused on ephemeral visual content—photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours, making it feel “in-the-moment”.
  “It imitates real life… whatever you say, it's very sort of like in the moment and it goes away.” — Miri (02:39)

• User Demographics and Reach:

  • 178 million daily users (2018 data), skewing very young (13–25).
  • Snapchat is capturing attention from a demographic underserved by other networks.
  • Despite slower growth, engagement remains high—a “gold mine of undervalued attention” due to low ad saturation.

• Mythbusting the Narrative:
  Press overstates Snapchat’s decline; in reality, brand campaigns show extraordinary click-through and engagement rates, attributed to the novelty and native nature of Snapchat ads. “...the click through rate was just sort of like off the charts... there’s this massive amount of undervalued attention on Snapchat.” — Miri (07:05)

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2. Effective Content and Creative Principles for Snapchat (09:53–16:31)

a. Show Human Faces and Keep it Personal

• Snapchat’s core is person-to-person visual sharing. Ad creative featuring people’s faces (especially influencers) sees a 73% higher engagement rate.
  “What we found out was that showing a human face in the snap increased engagement by 73%.” — Miri (11:33)
• The platform’s ad placement (snaps between friends’ stories) means polished brand graphics stand out awkwardly next to selfie-style content.

b. Grab Attention Quickly—You Only Have 2 Seconds!

• While the platform standard is 10-second snaps, real viewer decision time is just 2 seconds.
• Marketers must communicate value, energy, and message instantly. “When we tell them, hey, you don't actually have 10 seconds, you only have two.” — Miri (13:23)
• High-performing examples: Influencers getting to the point—e.g., starting with “Oh my God, my eyes hurt. I've been playing on this app all day. So addictive. Check it out.”

c. Speak the Audience’s Language

• Brands must use pop culture references, memes—content that “blends in” with youth communication styles. “If you're trying to reach young people, you gotta...speak their language—so pop culture references and memes and so on.” — Miri (16:31)
• Authenticity is key. Pure sales messaging (“buy now!”) is ignored.

d. “Advertainment” Over Pure Advertising

• Ads that entertain and provide value perform best. Example: Using viral memes or funny videos as the call-to-action rather than traditional sales pitches.
  “Something that we sort of espouse is called advertainment. So advertising, but entertaining at the same time.” — Miri (18:31)

e. Don’t Repurpose Other Platform Content

• Landscape, studio-polished, or re-edited TV/Instagram ads don’t work. Snapchat is vertical, mobile-only, and the most effective content feels casual and native to the space. “We found out content that was actually raw and unpolished did a lot, a whole lot better.” — Miri (21:13)

f. Shooting for Snapchat is Low Barrier

• Raw, iPhone-shot content outperforms professional studio work—a cost-saving advantage for smaller brands.

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3. Snapchat Platform Features and How to Use Them (24:36–32:40)

a. Lenses & Augmented Reality (AR) (24:36–28:30)

• What Are Lenses?
  Augmented reality objects added to photos/videos—hugely popular for engagement. “Lenses are basically AR objects...used to make your snaps cooler and more fun.” — Miri (24:36)

• Big Budget to Accessible:
  Previously only accessible to large brands (e.g., Taco Bell’s lens, $700K per day). In December 2017, Snapchat launched Lens Studio, making custom lenses available to all. “Any sort of person can create their own AR object...That’s absolutely massive.” — Miri (27:14)

• Practical Tip:
  Even small businesses can freelance a lens, e.g., a “dancing donut” mascot for a local donut shop, creating experiential marketing moments.

b. Snapcodes (29:42–32:40)

• What Are Snapcodes?
  A unique, QR-like code linking directly to a Snapchat profile, website, or campaign. “Snapcodes are very integral to Snapchat...they allowed Snapchat to grow quite quickly.” — Miri (30:11)

• Brand Examples:

  • Used for friend-adding and web linking.
  • Pepsi’s campaign: Snapcodes on bottles linked to fun web experiences.

• Implementation Tip:
  Easy for brands to deploy; can be used for both digital and physical campaigns (on packaging, in-store).

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4. Getting Started & Influencer Collaboration (33:17–36:43)

• First Steps:

  • Download Snapchat and play with it to understand the user perspective.
  • Set up a business account and begin experimenting with the three core principles (show face, get to the point, speak youth culture).

• Ad Solutions:

  • Snapchat Ad Platform: Good for budgets; moderate engagement.
  • Influencer Collaborations: Using micro-influencers is affordable and generally yields higher engagement because audiences are less saturated with paid content. “I would say the attention will be...a lot higher.” — Miri (34:45)

• Working with Influencers:

  • Research influencers’ style and audience to ensure brand fit.
  • Allow creative freedom to the influencer to maintain authenticity. “We spend a lot of time trying to map out the different features of someone's channel...so we make sure that it's a good match.” — Miri (35:51)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|---------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:39 | Miri | "It imitates real life... whatever you say, it's very sort of like in the moment and it goes away." | | 07:05 | Miri | "The click through rate was just sort of like off the charts... there’s this massive amount of undervalued attention on Snapchat." | | 11:33 | Miri | "Showing a human face in the snap increased engagement by 73%." | | 13:23 | Miri | "When we tell them, hey, you don't actually have 10 seconds, you only have two." | | 16:31 | Miri | "If you're trying to reach young people, you gotta...speak their language—so pop culture references and memes and so on." | | 18:31 | Miri | "Something that we sort of espouse is called advertainment. So advertising, but entertaining at the same time." | | 21:13 | Miri | "Content that was actually raw and unpolished did a whole lot better than content that was professionally edited and shot."| | 24:36 | Miri | "Lenses are basically AR objects...used to make your snaps cooler and more fun." | | 27:14 | Miri | "Any sort of person can create their own AR object...That's absolutely massive." | | 30:11 | Miri | "Snapcodes are very integral to Snapchat...they allowed Snapchat to grow quite quickly." | | 34:45 | Miri | "The engagement will be a lot higher [with Snapchat influencers]." |

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Timeline of Important Segments

• [02:39] What is Snapchat?
• [04:55] Audience stats; addressing media “doom and gloom”
• [09:53] Key engagement techniques: show your face
• [12:54] The 2-second attention rule
• [16:31] The critical importance of culture and language
• [18:31] “Advertainment” vs. old sales pitches
• [19:51] The dangers of repurposing and the need for raw content
• [24:36] Snapchat Lenses and AR—now open to all
• [29:42] Snapcodes for campaigns and web linkouts
• [33:17] How to begin: business account setup and influencer campaigns
• [35:40] How to work with influencers on Snapchat

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Summary and Actionable Takeaways

Who Should Use Snapchat?
Brands targeting teens and young adults (13–25), especially those able to create informal, entertainment-first content.

What Works:

• Show faces, keep content authentic and personal.
• Lead with energy and clarity in the first two seconds.
• Create native, vertical, unpolished content—avoid repurposing from other platforms.
• Use cultural touchstones, memes, and entertainment to drive interaction (“advertainment”).
• Experiment with features like Lenses (AR) and Snapcodes for engagement and linkouts.
• Tap into influencers whose style and audience align with your brand, letting them steer the creative.

Getting Started:

• Get familiar with Snapchat’s interface and culture through firsthand use.
• Start small with influencer collaborations or creative in-house content, focusing on authenticity over perfection.

Resource:
Fanbytes offers an eBook full of Snapchat “tricks and hacks,” linked in the episode's show notes.

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This episode provides a vital, hands-on masterclass for any marketer looking to unlock the potential of Snapchat—not just by understanding its user base, but by rethinking what effective, entertaining digital marketing looks like for today’s youngest audiences.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Digital Marketing Podcast brought to you by targetinternet.com hello, and welcome back to the Digital Marketing Podcast. My name is Kieran Rogers and today we've got something a bit different for you. We're joined with Miri from Fanbytes. Hello, Miri.

[B]

Hello. How's it going?

[A]

It's going well. So, Miri, I invited you on today because you guys are very familiar with and nay experts, I would say, in Snapchat influencer marketing. And I really wanted somebody who understands the whole Snapchat space and got lots of commercial experience to really talk me and our listeners through this whole Snapchat thing. You know, what is it, who's it for, and how does it work? So before we get started into that, Miri, tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do, and what Fanbytes do.

[B]

Well, hello, Kieran. Thank you so much for the introduction. Pleasure to be here. Quite a big fan of the podcast. So I work for a company called Fanbyte and we're based in London. And basically what we do is we help companies reach young people exclusively on Snapchat. Some of the companies that we work with are Unilever, Universal, Sony, Warner Bros. So like huge companies, and they specifically use us and use Snapchat influencers specifically for their brand campaigns in order to connect with young people. Been featured on Forbes, Business Insider, and many other places. And we've been doing this for a few years now. And I wanted to come onto your show simply because I hear a lot of things out there for digital marketing in terms of, like, other channels, not so much about Snapchat. And I know that people are somewhat confused or maybe they're not aware of what a powerful tool it can be. So that's basically what I wanted to get out there.

[A]

Perfect. And one of the things you and I got chatting about was I think last week there was yet another kind of doom and gloom report out that Snapchat wasn't growing as fast. And it really annoyed me. It really annoyed me because just because something isn't growing as fast does not mean it's dead and buried. You know, there are still millions of users out there, but as anybody in the media knows, you know, doom and gloom headlines get attention. That's why they tend to do the rounds. And actually, the same day you got in touch and like, perfect, perfect. We can lay some of these demons to rest because I think Snapchat's a fantastic platform and has all sorts of applications that digital marketers could start to explore. I think well, let's just get into it, really, for anybody who doesn't know what is Snapchat?

[B]

So Snapchat is a social media app similar to Facebook and Instagram. So the key theme of the app is the sharing of pictures and videos amongst friends. That's how Snapchat got started. And the sort of like USB or the differentiating factor was that everything disappears after 24 hours. Right. So it imitates real life, per se. If you're sort of like talking to your friend about VMatch, whatever you're saying, nobody's there, logging it or taking notice of it or recording everything, it disappears. So that's sort of like the appeal of Snapchat, that whatever you say, it's very sort of like in the moment and it goes away. And that's basically what the app does.

[A]

So it's a mobile phone app essentially, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. For smartphones. And yeah, as you say, it's great for sharing pictures and videos and they disappear after 24 hours. So how does it work?

[B]

So, obviously the first thing that we tell all of our clients and everyone who works with us is to download the app yourself and start playing around with it. However, a quick description. The main feature of Snapchat is the camera. So unlike Twitter, where it emphasizes a lot in terms of like texting and typing, Snapchat puts a lot of emphasis on the camera. You can take pictures and also capture moments in video. And after you sort of like take a picture or a video, you can beautify the video by adding all sorts of things to it, like text, drawing on it, or even the coolest thing. And I'm pretty sure we're going to touch upon this. It's ar object called lenses. So lenses are augmented reality objects that you can add to your photos, for example, if anybody's even remotely familiar with Snapchat, you ought to have seen the famous dog ears and the tongue coming out or the dancing hot dog. That became quite popular, I think, in 2016. It was one of the big memes.

[A]

Definitely want to talk about lenses, because I think they're very, very exciting. And there's been a recent update there which puts them within everybo grasp. Not just big brands with big budgets, but more on that in a second. So let's just give us some stats to whet our appetite for Snapchat, because if you read the doom and gloom, everybody's not using it anymore, which really isn't the case. So let's combat that.

[B]

So Snapchat started out relatively recently I think they gained a lot of popularity in America and they started distributing everywhere. At the moment it has about 178 million daily active users. So definitely nowhere near the scale of Facebook, which is nearing 2 billion or so. But I mean, 200 million people is definitely 200 million eyeballs is quite significant. But the most important part about Snapchat is most of the users are very young, between the ages of 13 to 17. So this will cover sort of like the teenager demographic and 17 to 25 year olds. There's lots of older users taking it on as well. 25 to 30 is a very fast growing demographic when it comes to young users. They are on Snapchat predominantly. More so than Facebook, more so than Twitter, obviously more so than Instagram as well.

[A]

And it's interesting, a lot of social media platforms do start out with the young kind of influencing and growing the platform. And then those of us longer in the tooth who aren't so down with the kids get to hear about it and start using it and think, hey, that's quite good. And it kind of gradually grows. So can you debunk some of these doom mongering press releases out there that it's dead and falling apart and pointless?

[B]

Right. So I do want to make one thing clear. This might come as sort of like bias to other people by what I. Because obviously our business is predominantly connected with Snapchat. However, I would encourage everyone to like, do your own research. Don't just like headline read and sort of like see what's happening out there. So one of the reasons we actually got into the business, it was about two years ago, was all the negative news that we were hearing about Snapchat. Right. Oh, they're not growing as fast or this is happening and that is happening. When we looked around, all of our friends, all of us were. By the way, I need to mention that everybody in the company is super young. I think the average age is about 21 years old. Yeah. So all of our friends were using it, all of us were using it. So we're like, hey, well, if everybody's saying that it's dead or Facebook will just crush it, why do I see everybody in the airport just sort of like on Snapchat, that little yellow app, and we tried to sort of look into it and see if there was anything to it. So what we did is we started running influencer campaigns on multiple platforms. We started with YouTube, we started with Instagram, and we incorporated Snapchat as well. And what happened was when we looked at the results we were like, hold on, that cannot be right. We were looking at the results from Snapchat specifically and the click through rate was just sort of like off the charts. And it really took us aback because we just couldn't believe it. And we ran a few more tests and we found out that there's this massive amount of undervalued attention on Snapchat and we can get into that a little bit more, more deeply. But at the moment, because the platform is relatively new, is relatively odd, and advertisers sort of like don't understand it quite well, it hasn't been bombarded with ads as much as sort of like the other more mature social media networks. So when someone on Snapchat hears, hey, swipe up to go to this link, they haven't heard it 20 times before that day, if you know what I mean. So they are more likely to take advantage. So we discovered this sort of like gold mine of attention and we decided to build a business around that.

[A]

Right, so your whole business is built on the fact that marketers worldwide haven't kind of over overused the platform and wrecked it for everybody. Right?

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

So it's a great platform for reaching audiences and they really engage with your stuff if it's, if it's got merit, I guess there's not as much competition out there is really what you're saying.

[B]

Definitely, definitely. I mean, as we mentioned, it has a very elusive audience, the young demographic, 13 to 25. So for example, if Unilever wants to release a new deodorant for young females, Snapchat would be the best place for them to go simply because they are spending a lot of their time on this platform. And another factor is that the audiences on Snapchat tend to be a lot more engaged than on other platforms simply because of the little feature that the content disappears. So do you Snapchat yourself, Kieran?

[A]

I've started. I have started. Not in a big way, but I'm excited about the platform. Those that listened into the episode about our new year predictions, I was kind of really sold on Snapchat when I discovered it had quick response codes built into it. Yes, it's back. And I've started playing with it. Playing with it since really, what would you say are kind of some of the key techniques for engaging with those audiences? Let's share a few of those with our listeners.

[B]

Right. So this is one of the most asked questions that we get. Lots of people go, hey, this all sounds great, but I'm not really sure where to start. When it comes to advertising on Snapchat or sort of like how to reach my audience. And there's a few sort of like core principles that we use for every single one of our campaigns where we, we see lots of results and I think that they would be helpful for everyone basically. And the main thing that we tell people, and this is something that is very important, the main sort of principle when creating content on Snapchat is the factor of showing your face. So if you ever sort of like open the app, the first thing you see is the camera, right? And the camera, the selfie camera. So the first thing you see is yourself. So it's a very personable platform. Unlike sort of like Facebook or Instagram where there's a feed that people just scroll through with lightspeed. Snapchat just sort of like invites you to express yourself and then also see content produced by your close friends. Hence if you're trying for example to advertise to a young demographic, let's say that you have a donut shop in the middle of London, right, And you want young people to sort of like come to your, to your donut place. What most brands that come to us would sort of like think be like, hey, I made this like motion graphics ad that just shows donuts dancing around on the screen and like, yeah, quickly flashing text. Does that work? And it'll be like, well, how about you get an actual young person, hold up the camera and say, oh, by the way, these donuts are fantastic. You guys should definitely check them out. And to add some more sort of like stats behind this, we did sort of like a test behind hundreds and hundreds of campaigns that we've run. What we found out was that showing a human face in the snap increased engagement by 73%. Wow. So if somebody saw a human face in the snap in the first two seconds, they were a lot more likely to continue watching the snap than if there was no sort of like human face on it.

[A]

That's interesting. Why do you think that is? Is it a built in filter to the, you know, the overexposure to marketing stuff that's out there, do you think?

[B]

I think, yeah, definitely. I think because the way that you consume sort of like ads on Snapchat, they put in between your friends stories. So if you see for example, Jenny, your friend, she's on her trip to Paris and she's taking a selfie of the Eiffel Tower and then the next snapshot, the next snap that you see is dancing donuts and like fast moving text that doesn't really blend in with the content, but if you see another young person who could very well be your friend, just basically a human. Human talking to you, then it blends in with the content on Snap a lot better.

[A]

Really interesting. So show your face. Okay. Any, any other kind of fundamentals we should, if we're approaching this platform.

[B]

Great. So the second thing which is very, very important is cut to the chase. I think, I think Snapchat is quite, it's quite famous for their 10 second limit and lots of brands come to us and go, oh my God, that's not enough to tell a story. I have this app that I want to market. It has this feature and this feature and this feature and this feature. How can I fit that into 10 seconds? And when we tell them, hey, you don't actually have 10 seconds, you only have two.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Yeah. The real time limit on Snapchat is only 2 seconds. Again, this is basically based on data that we ran based on hundreds of campaigns that we've run. And what we found out was that a Snapchat user will decide within two seconds whether to watch the entire Snap or to skip it. So that's sort of like something to.

[A]

Bear in mind, I should say. If you don't make a good impression in two seconds, you're toast.

[B]

Exactly. Because Snapchat at the moment does not force you to consume the ads. It's people can just skip through it. So if you want sort of like to grab someone's attention, what you need to do is have high energy for the first two seconds. And also get to the damn point. Just get creative and try to figure out what your sort of message is and compress it into the first sort of like two seconds in order to grab someone's attention. So the, a practical example would be we have a few sort of like app firms that work with us, and one of the biggest is called Plato. It's sort of like an app that you could play with friends, for example. Right. And they had so many features of the app that they wanted to highlight and when they gave us sort of like their briefs, it ran something like, hey, do you like chess? Do you like Connect 4? Oh, you might be willing to try this app. And it just took a while to get to the actual point and we said, no, no, how about we go, we have an influencer, come on and say, oh my God, my eyes hurt. I've been playing on this app all day. So addictive. Just go check it out. So something short, sweet. It just gets the sort of like the message across and the results that we saw from that were just completely astounding. I think we, the campaign that they ran with us was 50% cheaper for the same results across the board in terms of, compared to all the other sort of like channels that they were advertising. Wow.

[A]

And do you think that's down to how they've done it? You know, is it down to, you know, getting to the point? Because the platform kind of forces you to.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's definitely you. I, you just need to sort of like adapt to the environment that you advertise.

[A]

I think I just love it. I love, do you know, I love about this is that it's, it's actually putting into practice all the things that. But as marketers, we know, we know we have to get to the point. We know that our potential customer base is inundated with messages. You've got a really short time space to get their attention. But this is going one step further than that. This is actually making sure your adverts walk in the shoes of your customer and kind of really tick the box for them.

[B]

I'll tell you another thing. So when our campaign guy, Ambrose, he's a wizard, but when he's sort of like doing creative meetings and trying to come up with like, hey, this is the idea that we have for this client. And when our design network shows him ideas, he only watches the first two seconds and he says, oh, no, that's good, that's bad, that's horrible. And the creators get so angry because you didn't watch the entire ad. And he's like, I don't need to, I just need to watch the first two seconds. It's very sort of like important to get that right.

[A]

All right, so cut to the chase. That's our second fundamental. What's next?

[B]

The next thing would be culture. One thing that people forget is they're reaching out to young people. If your product is not for people under 25, I will tell you straight up, the doomongers are right. Snapchat is not the right platform for you. Just go to Facebook, you'll find a lot of like 30 year olds and over there. So Snapchat is predominantly used to advertise to young people. So if you're talking to them, then you just cannot be serious. You need to sort of like loosen up a little bit. If you're trying to reach young people, you got to sort of like speak their language, so pop culture references and memes and so on, they basically get the job done.

[A]

So I'm doomed. I'm doomed. It's never gonna happen. I'm too old.

[B]

It's just like a few Google searches, like, hey, what are the young people into these days? And like Gucci gang or something else.

[A]

I think that's great advice. The one thing I would say, listeners having trodden on this landmine is make sure you understand the full context and kind of run it past somebody that's in that age group because the subtleties of language can get you every time. I'm not going to go into how, what, where and why. Well, if you message me, I might tell you a story. But yeah, let's leave that, let's leave that behind closed doors. But yeah, I've trodden on that landmine and definitely you have to be careful with that. But, but I take the essence of what you're saying. Definitely. You know, getting, getting understanding the mode of communication with a, with a particular tribe or audience is really important.

[B]

Definitely, definitely. And another thing, within the culture, I would say lots of people, lots of ads focus on selling per se. And that's kind of boring in 2018, right? It's not the 1950s anymore. It was like, oh, buy now. Limited offers, like, nobody really cares.

[A]

My biggest hate, buy our stuff. It's, oh, please don't.

[B]

Yeah, ex. Exactly.

[A]

Don't just push that out. Yeah. And expect that to work every time.

[B]

It's not something that. And I think it goes into this sort of like culture point. Something that we sort of espouse is called advertainment. So advertising, but entertaining at the same time. So I'll give you a really good example. One of the apps that we were working for, it's called Laughs and it just contains sort of like funny gifs or like funny sort of like videos. And our call to action, which was swipe up, it was literally, have you heard of the Skype chain laugh?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You have, right? There's a bunch of people laughing in sequence and the laughs get progressively more sort of like absurd and hilarious. We just had that playing in the background. So that was the best call to action ever. Because you just want to watch it and then you're like, God damn, I need to check what this is. And then you swipe up. But we're not really selling like, hey, it's limited time offer, you should go get it or like, like something will happen. So that's sort of like another thing. Try to entertain while you're selling.

[A]

Fantastic.

[B]

Any others big one that we see with most of sort of our clients, this more of a do not do would be do not repurpose content. So what a lot of people will do is they will just take a video from Facebook or from Instagram and they'll be like, here, there you go. That's your creative.

[A]

Yeah, it's like cut down our 30 second TV slot into a 10 second Snapchat.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

And expect everybody to just cope with the fact that it's been shot in landscape, not portrait.

[B]

Yeah, that's exactly. You're definitely right. That's definitely sort of one of the huge problems that we have. Snapshot is a very unique platform. You cannot sort of. It doesn't have a desktop version like Facebook or Twitter or all the other social media platforms have. It's mobile only. So the only way you're going to view the content is through this sort of like small screen and vertical. So all your content needs to, to, to show that. And you'd be surprised, Kieran, how many brands get this wrong?

[A]

Oh, I don't think I would because I've seen, I've seen so many examples out there and well, videos just always seen as one of those expensive things. Right. And I know, I mean, I think even Snapchat have got a tool where you can sort of crop video shot in, in landscape. But actually I know the brands that are really serious about this and have found, I know that they found great riches at the end of it because they're investing a lot of money in actually, as well as shooting all of their footage in landscape, they're also shooting it in portrait at specific ratios purely so they can capture this wave of attention that they can get on the Snapchat platform. And I think that's really telling.

[B]

So the other point I was going to make is don't be fancy. It's something that we sort of try to aspire to and something that we tell all our clients. So we were going to make a creative for. I cannot give too much details because the sort of campaign is still ongoing, but it was a really huge client. We're going to make a creative and we turned it around in a, in a bunch of days, right. And the guy was like, that cannot be right. Usually our creatives take upwards of two weeks, probably a month because, because he expected us to have like a film director and like, you know those guys who hold the mic like a professional movie audio recorder. The thing with Snapchat is you need to know the context that your ads or sort of your content is going to be consumed. And as I mentioned, if the first snap that a person sees is their friend Jenny in Paris taking a selfie in her pretty crappy iPhone4 and your ad comes on and it's all shiny and 4K and it's really polished. It just is jarring, you know what I mean? Because it stands out. So people say, okay, well, that's not a friend. That's not sort of like it doesn't blend in with the platform. And what we found out was that content that was actually raw and unpolished did a lot, a whole lot better than content that was sort of, like, professionally edited and shot. In terms of, like, people saying, oh, cost might be an issue, I would say Snapchat actually has an advantage on that. If you're a sort of, like, small company or if you're like, indie developer, if your budget isn't too big, all you need is an iPhone. Just hold it up in the air, film your message or sort of like shoot your. So you're at and you're good to go.

[A]

I guess that goes back to not repurposing content, right? You know, you want to do something, you know, clearly unique, quick, and to the point for Snapchat. So it's one of the things as marketers we're conditioned to, you know, obsess about consistency across campaigns. I guess what you're saying is actually guys on this platform, that's not as important as being original and grabbing attention.

[B]

Yeah, definitely, Definitely. I mean, I would say, for example, the movie industry is quite big when it comes to advertising. They will take the trailer, they'll chop it in 100 different ways, and they'll push it into different platforms. One of the best strategies that a movie studio could have was you could do all the fancy trailer stuff for other platforms. For Snapchat, just get the actors, for example, the rock or whoever's playing to hold their phone up at the premiere. Be like, hey, I'm here with my buddy Kevin Hart. We're about to check the movie. If you want to check out the trailer, swipe up on the next snap. Like, literally, don't show me a crop top. Because the trailers are made for, like, you know, I mean, the whole horizontal screens, 4K. So if you want to put it on snapshot, you definitely have to crop it. So that wouldn't look so good. But something that's a little bit more raw, more authentic would definitely get the job done.

[A]

Thus completely cutting out sexy, deep voice movie voiceover man. Yeah, I love. I actually love that. I'M a bit sick of him.

[B]

In a world.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. All those. He's heard him too. He's everywhere, isn't he? Okay, fantastic. Well, Miri, I think you've rewritten some of the fundamental rules there. I think that's really exciting. So let's talk about some of the features built into the Snapchat platform. And the first one I want to really focus on is Snapchat lenses. What are they and how can we make use of them?

[B]

Lenses are basically AR objects, or augmented reality objects that are used to make your snaps cooler and more fun. Fun? It's a feature that Snapchat launched in the early 2010, and it's one of the most popular and one of the best features of the platform app at the moment.

[A]

I know. The Taco Bell lens that turned your whole face into a Taco Bell.

[B]

Yeah, exactly, yeah.

[A]

Was hugely popular, wasn't it? And it was one of the first campaigns that really caught the media's attention.

[B]

Yeah, definitely. And there's, like, a bunch of others as well.

[A]

So. Lenses always used to be the domain of people with massive budget. I know you had to. Originally you had to go through the Snapchat sales team and they'd make appointments and stuff. It was that serious.

[B]

So.

[A]

But that all changed back in December. Can you tell us what happened?

[B]

Yeah. So basically, when it comes to ar, you're very right in saying that if a brand wanted to use one of these AR objects, like you mentioned Taco bell, I know McDonald's has used a few as well. We had, like, fries jumping over the screen. And if you wanted to use them, the brands had to go to Snapchat and they were actually quite expensive. One of the huge revenue streams for Snapchat, I think the cost of a lens for one single day was around $700,000, which is astronomical as far as, like, marketing budgets go. So what happened was there's a bit of a race at the moment going on when it comes to ar. So virtual reality is seen to be sort of like the future, where you sort of, like, put sort of like a bunch of headset on and then you're suddenly like. Like the prehistoric world with dinosaurs walking around. Maybe you're in space. Right. So what happens is Snapchat has a bit of a foothold on that because, as I mentioned, they integrated this feature on their app quite a bit. But Facebook is trying to compete as well because they sort of, like, see the huge potential. So what happened in December was that Facebook said, okay, we have our own AR API. But not many people are using it because most of our users don't really are having used to sort of like using ar. So in order to compete, we're going to open up our API to the whole world so that basically we could bank on the talent of the world to compete with sort of like Snapchat. And then literally about a week later, Snapchat said, well, we're going to open our AR API as well. So they created something called Lens Studio. So now when it comes to these AR objects that we spoke about, like the dancing hot dog before, you had to go to Snapchat to do that. But at the moment, any sort of, like, person can create their own AR object and they can sort of like distribute it through Snapchat. And that's absolutely massive.

[A]

And I think it's fair to say there's a little bit of a learning curve in terms of learning how to use Lens Studio. I got very excited when I saw this come out. We were posting it out in our social media channels on the last Friday before Christmas.

[B]

Did you get your hands on it?

[A]

Yeah, I did, I did. I had a little play. We decided it was the perfect thing to be research in inverted commas on the last afternoon before Christmas and shared that out with the people. So hopefully a few of you had a chance to play with that. I mean, it's a nice interface, a bit of a knowledge of graphic design and image formats and cropping and stuff. Also a massive, massive help, but even so, accessible to a lot of teams and even small agencies.

[B]

Right? Definitely. I mean, you're definitely right. So it does require a bit of a sort of, like, background when it comes to 3D design. So the best person to sort of like, go to would be sort of like a designer. But even then you could, you could get sort of like, if you had, like, an idea in mind, you could get someone to design something for you for about 300 quid or so, just freelance it. But you could also definitely sort of like, start playing around with it as.

[A]

Well and worth it in terms of engagement that you get off the back of it.

[B]

It's something that I think people shouldn't be scared off and they should definitely sort of like, it's. It's at least worth it a try. Because imagine the sort of like our hypothetical donut shop in the center of London, if the owner was to sort of like, go to, as I mentioned, a freelance designer and said, hey, how about you can make sort of like a dancing donut for me and maybe stick My logo on him, on this sort of, like, little mascot. And then you could sort of like, just put this, like, in a very visible place in your shop or like, maybe in your packaging. Like, whenever someone buys a donut on the top of the box, you could say, hey, how about you scan this Snap code for a really nice surprise? And when somebody's sort of, like, consuming your product, they're also having this added experience on top. Because we think that experience is very, very important when it comes to sort of, like, businesses. Not necessarily that. Let's say you have two competing donut shops. Going back to the donut example, the one that offers sort of like the best experience is the one that we think gets sort of, like, the most customers. So it's something that is definitely sort of achievable and worth looking into.

[A]

Okay, great. Let's talk about Snapcodes. I'm a big fan of the snapcode. Essentially, for those of you not aware of what it is, it's like a QR code. It's got a little Snapchat ghost icon, and around it, you've got lots of kind of square dots, and those dots form a pattern which is able to be translated by the Snapchat app into a web address. So how are brands using these and can they be used? Seriously, from your perspective?

[B]

Gotcha. Yeah. Well, Snapcodes are very integral to Snapchat. In the beginning, it was a little bit difficult to find your friends on Snapchat. Like, you had to, like, find their username. But then when Snapchat came up with this genius idea of sort of, like, incorporating the QR technology and linking it to specific individual profiles. So right now, if you sort of met a new friend and you're like, hey, what's your Snapchat? And instead of going, oh, it's KC45TX4.

[A]

Which is not cool. Definitely not cool.

[B]

Which is not cool at all. Exactly. And takes lots of time. So you could be like, hey, what's your Snap code? So people would just sort of like, pop out their phones, you could just take a quick scan and then it would link you to the person's profile. So it was one of the features that allowed Snapchat to grow quite quickly and gain attention. This sort of, like, unique way of connecting with people. So it's used extensively, adding your friends. As you mentioned, in January last year, 2017, Snapchat opened it up so that you could link out to almost any website. So that was a way that we used snapcode. So in the beginning, Snapchat didn't have the Swipe up feature. So people were like, oh, there's no swipe up feature. You cannot link out from the app. The app is dead. Advertisers cannot use it. So what we did was instead of having sort of like a link out, we had, hey, screenshot, the snapcode. And then using the snapcode, you can then link out to the campaign destination, like basically buying the, downloading the app or whatever the sort of goal was. So it's sort of like a creative way for a call to action. And I think it's something that people could use in their campaigns. I know of Pep Pepsi ran a really famous campaign in Canada, I think it was last summer. What they did was they put millions of Snap codes on their sort of like on their Pepsi bottles. So let's say you're consuming the product and then you're like, oh, what is this? So you take a scan of the Snap code and then it gave you sort of like it directed to like a really cool website and you had like a really nice animation that played with according to the sort of setting that you were. And that made quite a bit of a. Capture a lot of attention, especially sort of like in the news circles and did quite well for Pepsi. So I think it's a pretty ingenious idea. And people, it's very easy to implement as well. Another thing, all the things I'm explaining, it just takes a little bit of research and quite easy to implement.

[A]

Okay, very good. Well, I'd encourage people to get out there and start experimenting with that. With the caveat there being, you know, at the moment, definitely it's something that would need to be focused on, on a, on a youth audience and, you know, all the things that Miri's shared with us, all of those principles would all stand true because actually if you don't sort of follow through on that advice, you're kind of killing, killing the platform while slowly strangling your brand within that age group as well. So as a business, how can we get started with Snapchat if we've not. Not really dabbled in it first?

[B]

Yeah. So I would say the first thing, the very most important thing would be get your hands on it. And I think just sort of like trying to get familiar with the platform is incredibly important. What most companies do. And it's a bit different because with us, we work with like really huge companies, so there's like a hierarchy involved, so there's other sort of like processes in play. But think for smaller businesses or for people who own their own businesses. It's definitely worth it to sort of like, get your hands on the platform and sort of like, get familiar with it. Because most of the confusion about Snapchat, like, oh, I don't understand it. It literally goes away after the first 20 minutes of you playing around with the app. You'll understand the full thing. And I would say you could get started by opening an account. You can open an account on Snapchat and then start creating content that way by keeping in mind some of the principles I mentioned before, which was showing face, cutting straight to the chase and so on. A second way that someone could get started is if they have a bit of a budget when it comes to advertising. You could get started using Snapchat ads. It's very good if your budget is quite flexible and they're good. Although we've done a bunch of tests in terms of their performance compared to. To sort of, like, performance using what we use, which is Snapchat influencers, they get the job done. However, they're not sort of like, ideal. The last thing which would be sort of like, really good, we would suggest, would be Snapchat influencers. We work with really sort of like huge influencers. But for someone who would be like, hey, I don't know where to get started. Where are these people? I would say most of the influencers that you see sort of like on Instagram, because it's a bit more visible while on Snapchat, there's not really a direct. Most of the influencers you see on Instagram or YouTube, they also have their own personal Snap accounts. So if you approach them like a small food blogger that has like 4,000 followers on Instagram, right. They might also have a Snapchat account with 500 regular views. So you could go to be like, hey, I'm not interested to advertise through your Instagram, but I want to advertise through Snapchat. And their prices could be a lot cheaper as well through Snapchat. And also, ironically, the attention will be. The engagement will be a lot higher. So that's one of the ways that would be sort of like a good one.

[A]

And when you approach influencers, do you tend to approach them with hard and fixed ideas, or do you keep it a lot more fluid and make them a part of the campaign?

[B]

That's a good question. We work really hard in terms of mapping out the sort of audience and style of the influencers. So. So if two influencers are in the entertainment sort of like, section, let's say that two influencers are labeled as, okay, their niche is entertainment. Their audience is interested in entertainment, like content. Their styles could be very, very different. One of them could be more informal, could be more high energy, while the other one could be more sort of like laid back. So we spend a lot of time trying to map out the different features of someone's channel. And then when a brand approaches us with an idea, we say, okay, this influencer is not going to be good for you, but this one will. And because we've done sort of like the mapping up beforehand, it's we make sure that it's a good match.

[A]

Okay, fantastic. Well, it's been so interesting talking to you and yeah, I mean, I've learned quite a lot. I hope everyone listening has as well. If we want to find out more about what fanbytes do and maybe even engage with them on a Snapchat social influencer campaign, how would we do that? Where do we go?

[B]

Oh, good question. So I think the main sort of like place would be our website. So fanbytes.co.uk, bytes with a Y. So F, A N B Y T E s. But as a little bonus, Kieran, we actually made a ebook that contains all sorts of like tricks and hacks when it comes to snapshots that everybody sort of like should know when it comes to sort of like creating content on Snapchat. And it touches upon a lot of the things that I mentioned. However, there's a lot more information there. There's videos, there's sort of like pictures to illustrate everything. So I think we could link that as well into the show notes as well. I'll send you a link for that, but I think that's pretty much it.

[A]

Fantastic. Well, Mary, thank you so much for, for giving us the time. Really interesting walk through through the platform and we wish you the best of luck with this year's influencer campaigns.

[B]

Thank you so much, Kieran. My pleasure.

[A]

Thanks for listening to the digital marketing podcast brought to you by Target Internet. If you're investing in your digital marketing skills, take a look at our free benchmark skills test and look at the work of online learning we provide to help marketers get up to speed and stay up to date. Just visit targetinternet.com forward/benchmark.