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Snapchat is one of the most popular apps for digital advertising right now with over 8 billion videos viewed on Snapchat every single day. According to their homepage, “SnapChat is one of the best ways to reach 13-34 year olds, [because] more than 60% of 13-34 year olds who have smart phones are also Snapchatters.” That’s a huge audience with a surprising amount of diversity (more on that later) your business should be targeting for it’s advertising campaign.
Fortunately for us, Snapchat has been working diligently to create different advertising options to meet the public’s demands. A few of these include:
- 3V advertising (also known as Vertical Video Views)
- Age-Gating (specifically geared towards alcohol brands)
- Discover (for news and media outlets)
- GeoFilters (sometimes known as Geofilters)
These are only some of the ways Snapchat is taking advantage of the advertising sector, but Geofilters, have been one of the fastest growing options because it’s easy and can be used by almost any business no matter the size, industry, or audience. Consider some information on Geofilters below: What they are, how they work, and how they can be working for you specifically to increase brand awareness.
What is a Snapchat Geofilter?
In short, Geofilters are either Snapchat, brand, or user-created art created for specific locations that you can add as an overlay to enhance your snaps. For example, when a user sends a Snap to friends from Chicago, they can access the Chicago Geofilter graphics and add them to their Snap (and this goes for any location).
According to Marketing Land, these snaps with location overlays account for over 1 million of the messages sent using Snapchat every day. No wonder big brands like McDonald’s, GE, The Hunger Games, and Nike are clamoring to get a piece of this new style of advertising.
How does a GeoFilter work for brand advertising?
Geofilters work because in a world where the “if you don’t post it on [insert any social media outlet here] it didn’t happen” mentality thrives, Snapchat is offering it’s users a chance to customize and engage with the content they are choosing to share with others. Plain and simply, this audience of 13-34 year olds wants filters.
One of the reasons Facebook’s “sticker” option never took off was because it didn’t offer users the amount, or level of quality, of filters that other sites like Instagram and Snapchat do. So, since more is better, it only makes sense that Snapchat users are going to eat up the option to include a movie filter, like Terminator, or a restaurant filter, like McDonald’s, in their snaps, thus increasing that particular brand’s popularity and awareness with the millions of videos that are sent out using these filters every day. If you’re still not convinced, check out the data that supports the effectiveness of these types of ads. For example, Snapchatters who watched an ad for a movie were 3x more likely to go see that film than those of the same demographic who didn’t watch the ad.
How to Make Sure a Geofilter Will Work For Your Brand
Are you considering creating a Geofilter for your brand’s advertising? Follow these simple steps and you’ll have people Snapchatting your business in no time.
Are you using a location to your advantage?
Local Geofilters are one of the most popular options out there for Snapchat users, so if it’s possible for you to take advantage of a specific local, you should! For example, here are some of the filters the W Hotels have put out that can be activated depending on the location of the hotel you are staying.
Is it correlated to a specific time?
One of the things that make Snapchat so popular is that everything that’s posted has an expiration date of 24 hours. This enables users to constantly update and change their posts, allowing them to live in the moment. They don’t have to worry about creating a lasting, consistent, online persona; instead they can just post what feels right at the time, and change it 24 hours later. So think- does your ad correspond with this fast-paced mindset?
Think about how to best take advantage of this to promote your business. For example: if you’re selling coffee, you might only want your filter to be available in the morning, vs. an alcohol-based business that might only have theirs appear at night. You could also create filters to work with various seasons, such as Dunkin Donuts did below.
Another option is to promote a sale or special that is tied in with your business, like Express did here:
This ad by Reebok took advantage of both an event and a location in order to promote the CrossFit Games they sponsored in California:
Are users able to interact with your filter?
One of the things that users like so much about Snapchat is that it is interactive and engaging. For decades teachers have been taught to use interactive learning in their lessons in order to best reach their students; research shows that the more interactive and engaged you are, the better you learn, understand, and retain information. Considering Snapchat’s biggest audience is 13-34 year olds (many of which are probably students), this could really work in favor of your brand if you design your filter to work in this manner.
There are tons of websites and articles out there to help you design your interactive filter, although Snapchat’s official page is not one of them. I found this video and this one on YouTube to be very helpful. Don’t be afraid to design something, try it out, and see what happens.
Note: An easy way to track if your snap is being viewed is by logging in to geofilters.Snapchat.com, clicking your name in the upper right hand corner, and selecting “insights.”
Will people see it?
If you’re going to the trouble of designing and paying for a filter, obviously you want to make sure it’s seen by as many people as possible. Some ways to do this are:
- Share on social media (ie: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
- Get someone with a large Snapchat following to create content with your filter and then share it with their audience.
- Offer incentives for people to use your filter. For example, ask users to screenshot their snaps and submit them in order to win a prize.
Again, use this link to check the Geometrics and make sure your Geofilter is being used to its optimal potential. It is, of course, a terrible idea to pay for something and then never check to see if it’s even working.
How to Create a Geofilter for Your Business
Creating a Geofilter is as easy as visiting this website from Snapchat and clicking “Create New,” then designing your artwork, choosing a time you want the filter available, and submitting your filter to be reviewed within one business day. Unfortunately, this comes at a price if you want to create a Geofilter for your business specifically with your logo or branding included in some way.
Alright, now that you’re a Snapchat pro, how are you going to use Geofilters to optimize your brand awareness? Do you have any experience designing filters that work? Please share in the comments below and let us your thoughts.