The
very best way to grow your Snapchat following and keep them engaged is
by posting quality content every single day. Quality content can be
almost anything as long as it’s entertaining or educational.
For example you could post tips like "5 Ways to Be More
Productive in the Morning", or you could post a tutorial like "3 Steps
to Setting Up Your New Widget". You could also post product reviews like
"An Unboxing of the Newest Best Phone" or a giveaway for your fans.
You could even simply post behind the scenes snaps of your office if your colleagues often do funny or educational things.
Here are some snaps from the Foundr office where I spend my days
Boring snaps will likely lead to a loss of followers after you put in hard work to get them, so it’s best to have a content calendar for keeping your snaps (and the rest of your social media) exciting and consistent.
Now let’s dive into the really good stuff: how to grow your Snapchat following.
1. Invite an Influencer to Takeover Your Account for a Day
When Louis Vuitton wanted to get more views on their LVLive
account they tapped Jim Chapman to takeover their Snapchat for a day.
Jim was voted GQ’s Best Dressed Man in 2015, a poll that
was open to fans. It’s not surprising that Jim won as he has over 2.5
million subscribers on YouTube and over 2 million followers on Instagram
and Twitter. He is a quintessential social media influencer.
Inviting influencers to take over your account is a great
way to increase your follower account quickly - but keep in mind that it
won’t be free.
Most influencers charge steep rates for the use of the
audience, which they've carefully curated over the months and years.
Each influencer knows that taking on too many brand deals will annoy
their audience and may cost them followers, so they're careful about who
they work with and most offer a limited number of openings for
partnerships/sponsorships.
For example, it’s not unheard of for a popular influencer
like Jim Chapman to charge $5,000 or more for a single social media
update mentioning a brand. Also keep in mind you won’t be reaching out
directly to big influencers like Jim, who have millions of followers.
Similar to famous movie and TV stars, you’ll need to reach out to their
management.
For example Jim is managed by an agency called Gleam Futures.
On the Gleam website you’ll find many other influencers you can also
select to work with, based on who your target audience is.
2. Work with an Influencer on a Shout Out
If tens of thousands of dollars is outside of your budget
for an influencer takeover campaign, you can always ask about an
influencer shout out.
During a takeover campaign, an influencer manages your
Snapchat account for an entire day, but with a Shout Out the influencer
simply mentions you once on their own social media account.
If you have a truly awesome product to sell, you can often
get an influencer to shout you out by sending them a free product in
packaging that will catch their eye. Remember influencers get many, many
boxes with free product a day so you need to do something to your box
to make it stand out.
Then, you can increase your chances of getting a free shout
out even more if you personalize the product. For example, if you’re a
beauty brand sending a free bottle of perfume, you could engage the name
of the influencer on the bottle.
If you’re not interest in the long-game (in which you wait
and see if an influencer mentions you), you can reach out to the person
or their management and ask about sponsored Snapchat shoutouts.
In a shout out, the influencer will mention you/your company/your products and will then tell their followers to follow you.
For instance, here’s an example of beauty influencer Estee LaLonde giving a shout out to cosmetics brand Tatcha.
From a really good influencer, a shout out like this can
cost a couple to a few thousand dollars. If you don’t have that kind of
cash to splash, it’s best to try your hand at the long game.
Make your package stand out, include a really nice note and
also a detailed description of your product and its benefits - that’s
the formula for getting a free shoutout from a reputable influencer.
3. Cross-Promote Yourself
Snapchat came out after Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and
Instagram were already established. That means your followings on those
other social networks are probably higher than Snapchat, simply because
you’ve had longer to collect them.
Take a page out of popular social media influencer playlists and cross-promote your own channels.
For example, here, YouTuber Amelia Liana, is promoting her new video to her Snapchat followers:
In fact Shane keeps his Snapchat handle up for the duration
of most of his videos to grow his follower base. Then on Snapchat each
day he posts an update to let his followers know when his new YouTube
video goes up.
What a great cycle of cross-promotion.
And of course, he also creates other snaps throughout the
day to keep his fans entertained otherwise they would never watch his
Snapchat.
Don’t be afraid of a little shameless self promotion. As
long as you’re providing value the majority of the time, you won’t lose
any of your audience due to a little bit of self-promotion.
Try to keep an 80/20 or 90/10 balance, where 80 or 90% of
your posts are educational/entertaining and just 10-20% are self
promotional in nature.
Getting Started
The first thing to do is open a Snapchat account if you
haven’t already done so. I know it can be intimidating to open a new
account with zero followers, but if you already have a following on
other social media channels (and you’re providing value), you’ll be able
to move some of them over to Snapchat.
If you have a Snapchat account and want to grow your
following, it’s time to get networking to find someone to do a takeover
or shout out for you. You may have to shell out some cash, but if you’re
really nice they might do it for free. Just be sure to offer something
in return like a free product (or many free products).
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