Snapchat for Brands: Worth the Investment?

Marketers looking to use Snapchat for brands, take note: 2016 is shaping up to be a banner year. This relative newcomer to the social media space is reported to have as many as 200 million users who send a staggering 700 million photos per day. And potentially following in the footsteps of social media giants Facebook and Twitter, Snapchat is a platform that many analysts predict will go public in 2016.

Given Snapchat’s swift growth, many marketers are eager to explore potential ways to tap its millions of active mobile users for brand awareness and engagement. Particularly for those wishing to reach moms, the question remains: is using Snapchat for brands worth the time, money and creative energy required to stand out on a platform in which content has a limited lifespan among users who are primarily 25 years of age and younger?

Our answer in 2015 was “generally, no.” However, in our continual evaluation of the social media space, our 2016 standpoint is evolving to “not quite yet, but it’s coming.”

Snapchat Adoption Among Moms

With engagement and responsiveness being two of the top qualities that lead to reader trust, bloggers with multiple social media platforms are focusing most of their energy where their audiences are most active. So far, Snapchat hasn’t made the cut.

In The Motherhood’s recent survey of more than 600 bloggers, Snapchat ranked the lowest in terms of platforms that brands request bloggers use and platforms that bloggers recommend brands use. Many influential social media moms reported having Snapchat on their mobile devices, but they use it very casually and aren’t convinced of its usefulness in connecting with the communities they’ve worked so hard to build. Less than two percent of bloggers surveyed have used Snapchat for influencer campaigns, but nearly half think there is a future in collaborating with brands via this platform.

While The Motherhood’s research revealed that 80 percent of consumers are more likely to purchase a brand they saw on social media, it appears the same isn’t holding true for Snapchat. A survey from Column Five and News Cred reports that branded promotional content isn’t making an impact on their purchasing decisions: a mere two percent reported that they “sometimes” buy something they saw on Snapchat, while a staggering 98 percent answered “rarely or never.”

Via Wired, ComScore shared that while Snapchat has grown 59 percent in the last year to 40.3 million U.S. adult users, it has grown 69 percent among people age 25 to 34, which many think is approaching the tipping point for a social media platform to move from niche to mainstream.

If You Can’t Measure It, You Can’t Manage It

With adoption among the adult demographic expected to increase, and with bloggers optimistic that the platform will pick up steam, what’s next in terms of Snapchat for brands?

Just as bloggers try to strike a balance between nurturing the platforms where they find the most value and building a following on new social channels, brands are also weighing their options. Should they focus their marketing dollars on platforms on which they’ve achieved measurable, repeatable success, or test relatively unknown waters?

Currently, one of the most limiting aspects of Snapchat for brands is the lack of ability to measure and target. While other social media platforms deliver data that help marketers analyze and adjust content and delivery, it can be difficult to prove a platform’s value without being able to benchmark and track performance.

However, the rumored release of an API could change the game. Digiday summarizes some of the benefits of a Snapchat API:

“An API would help measure performance of content on Snapchat, get better insights into the type of people who are watching, where they’re located,” said Nick Cicero, CEO of Delmondo, an agency specializing in Snapchat analytics and influencers. “It would also enable brands to create more content with influencers.”

Delivering Messages That Matter

To The Motherhood, the heart of influencer marketing is looking at where a brand’s consumers engage online and how they naturally interact, and including a brand in that conversation in a relevant, authentic way. For centuries, moms have been sharing ideas and advice with their closest networks of friends in a deeply personal way, and in the modern digital age, The Motherhood helps brands be a part of those conversations online in a way that evokes trust, advocacy and action.

As The Motherhood’s social listening team continues to monitor and evaluate usage of Snapchat for brands, we’re also tapping our proprietary database to hear and apply what our nationwide network of moms is saying. The Motherhood’s campaign recommendations always reflect the platforms and message delivery we know will resonate among consumers.

If your brand would like to discuss ways to work together on an influencer marketing campaign based on our consumer insights and always-on social listening, email us at contact@themotherhood.com.

Featured image courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons user AdamPrzezdziek.