If you haven’t heard of Snapchat, it means you’ve spent the last few years hiding under a rock. Snapchat is the new, cooler way of texting, especially with younger generations. Here’s how it works: start by taking a picture or video (you can also use existing pictures or videos from your device, but that’s not as fun). Then, customize it to your liking with filters, text, images, emojis, and more. Choose how long you would like your picture to show for, from 1-10 seconds. Videos are capped at a maximum of 10 seconds. Next, choose your viewers. You can send this ‘snap’ to your Story, which you can choose to be visible to just your friends or anyone with a Snapchat account. These stories are available to the selected audience for 24 hours. You can also send these snaps just to individuals. Both methods allow you to see if the snap has been viewed and by whom. You can even see who has taken a screenshot of your snap(s). Why is this so fun? Well you wouldn’t necessarily send pictures of your whole day to individuals, unless you wanted to be irritating. Snapchat encourages you to do so, and the options used to change images and videos multiplies the fun while reducing or eliminating irritation. With so many possibilities for advertising, we’ve came up with 3 items that you should avoid doing on Snapchat, whether it’s for your personal or business account.
1. Don’t Send Snaps shorter than 2 seconds
When your snaps are too short, the user hardly sees anything you post. This might work with ‘teaser’ advertisements, but ultimately it frustrates the receiver. You also waste valuable seconds that could be used to portray your message. Nothing is more annoying on Snapchat than having to scroll down to find and replay a snap and/or story that was just viewed to see what was missed. Snaps are already short and fading; don’t add to that.
2. Don’t send an individual a snap that you also post to your story
Especially if you have a business account, this can turn users off to your brand. The individual snaps are exciting because, ideally, they are only sent to certain accounts and not viewable to the public. This gives users a sense of exclusiveness. You eliminate that feeling when they see the same snap in your story, and leave a taste of annoyance in the user’s mouth.
3. Don’t overuse filters
Sure, they’re cute, fun, and exciting, but they get overused…and quickly. Limit your filters to a few a day. If the people who see your snaps daily couldn’t pick your face out of a lineup, it’s time to slow down on the filters.
Good luck Snapping!
