The buzz around Snapchat right now is amazing! I would give a ton of that credit to Gary Vaynerchuk of VaynerMedia and of course multiple bestselling author of three books all around social media, service and over delivering to your customer. Lastly he was one of my guest in episode 42 and yes it's still valid today.
So Snapchat for Business?
Gary has grown his following on Snapchat from 3000 people to over 25,000 in just one week of talking about Snapchat on mostly Snapchat but also on all his other channels. If you follow Gary on Snapchat your see a mixture of behind the scenes of his company, meetings and his love of the Jets. What's grown his following more than anything is that Gary has been answering questions about business almost non-stop for the past two weeks.
People get value from how engaged Gary is on his channel which is key to growing your following on any platform but especially on Snapchat. Followers get to know Gary by seeing the behind the scenes of his Daily Vee show and even though he's wildly popular and an icon in social media he's approachable and follows everyone back enabling direct interaction with his fans.
Approachability is what your customers want and in 2016 it's what they are demanding from you. It's an inspiring thing to see "Snaps" from Gary at 5A.M and then watch him taking meetings at 11:45.PM. because you see him actually living the hustle lifestyle that so many talk about.
Chris Ducker author of Virtual freedom and featured in Episode 33 has also joined Snapchat and started posting daily. I "Snapped" with Chris today and he's adding about 50 to 60 new people everyday to his Snapchat. Chris is giving business advice, taking you through his day and giving you insights into how he runs his business.
Approachability Is Key
I've been on Snapchat for over a year and the way that I've found it to be most effective is to do a combination of what I've seen from both Chris and Gary in addition to adding my own style to my "Snaps" to keep it personal which gets me lots of interaction from my audience. When I go too business heavy the response isn't as great which I think speaks to the personal aspects of the network.
I recently was approached for a speaking opportunity based on posting my Snapcode to Twitter and Instagram. The person saw my tweet, followed me on Twitter and then watched some of my Snaps. After getting feel for my personality they reached out and the first thing they said is they loved how approachable I was all the time and that's what they wanted for their audience.
What I want for you is to first get on Snapchat. If you didn't watch the video at the top of the post go there now and check it out. Here's a quick breakdown of what you can do to get your business on Snapchat:
- Download and install Snapchat
- Outline what you want to talk about. This is important because not everyone is a natural storyteller and when you add storytelling on camera and it gets even more difficult to create good content. Consider who your audience will be, what they are interested in and what you would also want to watch. Your goal for the story and the outcome you're attempting to deliver by the end of the series of Snaps. You only get 10 seconds so you will end up recording several Sanps to tell your story.
- If you're artistic you can use a feature in Snapchat to draw or place text over images for even more effect.
- When using just images draw arrows to what you want to bring attention to and use emojis to express the sentiment you want to convey.
- Make it easy for people to find you on Snapchat by promoting your Snapcode on your strongest social channels. In addition consider joining sites like Ghostcodes. Ghostcodes is a 3rd party Snapchat discovery app that helps even more people discover your profile.
- Start recording and posting
- Be patient!
Patience
Social media and the ROI on social is a marathon not a race. Just because there's a ton of buzz around Snapchat doesn't mean all of your customers are going to flock to the platform. Even though 100 million people are using Snapchat daily doesn't guarantee you will get them following your stories initially.
Use Twitter to listen and then respond to tweets that have #Snapchat in them. Look at the people you follow on Instagram and check their profiles. Most influencers on Instagram add their Snapchat handle in the profile description. Start by following those people and make Snapchat stories that add to stories they've posted or use the influencers stories as inspiration for your own.
Just a couple of days ago I received an email from Ramit Seti that had some very interesting points about investment in one's self. I took inspiration from that post and added my own voice and created a Snapchat story. The story got a few views and a few responses back to me which in turn started conversations with new people which could eventually result in new business.
No matter what you're doing it's going to take time to build a group of people that are following you. Record something every day so you can get use to creating stories even if no one is viewing your snaps because eventually they will.
Use the example above in the video to create your own easy to follow instructions to post on your social media and on your blogs. I would love to know what you think in the comments and remember to follow me on Snapchat or any of my other of my social networks.
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