Looking back, it is quite shocking to think about how quickly social media has grown to dominate our lives on a day to day basis, especially considering Myspace (remember Myspace?!) is only 14 years old.

Given how quickly social media has taken over, it isn’t surprising that it can feel extremely difficult at times for marketing departments to keep up with all the latest trends and channels, and utilize them properly.

Take for example, the rise in dominance of Snapchat over recent months. As more and more people are spending less and less time on Facebook and more on Snapchat, the potential it holds to reach huge numbers of consumers has never been higher.

To help you keep up, here are three of the most effective tips for how you can use Snapchat for your business:

Embrace Snap Ads

Those vertical adverts that play in between Snapchat stories are called Snap Ads, and they represent the perfect opportunity to ease into using Snapchat for your business. The vertical alignment of these ads means they often have to be custom made just for Snapchat use, which can often lend them a more unique, personalized feel. These ads also tend to be very short, roughly 10 seconds in length, which can help increase audience retention rates, and have added layers of interactivity. All of this, according to Snapchat, means that “swipe up” rates for Snap Ads are five times higher than average click through rates for comparable ads on other social media platforms. 

Enhance customer engagement

By using Snapchat, your company has the potential to offer customers a much enhanced level of customer engagement. For example, if your company is releasing a new product then ask people to post snaps or selfies of themselves using and reviewing the product, or post offers and voucher codes that are exclusively available on your Snapchat.

Additionally, Snapchat filters are a great way of extending your company’s reach. These augmented reality filters are a great way to encourage your consumers to share your company with their friends, so creating the filter and releasing then allows the consumers to do the footwork of spreading the word.

Engage with influencers

Influencer marketing can sometimes carry with it some negative connotations (and sometimes with good reasons, just think back to the disaster that was Fyre Festival!) But influencer needn’t be a dirty word. Influencer marketing has actually been around for a long, long time, and it basically boils down to having your service or product being endorsed by a person or company who should be a trusted expert on the subject. Snapchat’s more personalized nature makes it a perfect match for influencer marketers. Reach out and ask influencers to post stories relating to your brand on their own accounts, or ask them to take over your own Snapchat feed for a day. Both of these strategies can help to expose your business to a whole new potential audience.