This is the fourth installment of our blog series focusing on how video can amp up your social media marketing campaign. Last week, Grant wrote about Facebook!
If you have a brand that targets the under-35 demographic and you haven’t yet mastered the art of Snapchat, I would suggest you jump on that bandwagon, stat. Millennials have helped make Snapchat one of the fastest growing mobile-based social networks of the century, and it has yet to show signs of stopping.
With monthly active user totals creeping up on 200 million, and over 10 billion videos viewed each day, Snapchat (launched as an image messaging app in 2011) provides a real, raw, in-the-moment glimpse into what people, places, and things are doing right here, right now. It’s the ephemeral cousin of the other major social channels, putting a limited lifespan on the availability of each “snap story”, and perpetuating the FOMO (fear of missing out) mentality that has taken over the younger generation.
So, how does advertising play a role here?
Snapchat Ads: What’s the Cost?
Social media advertising is not going anywhere. According to Statista, in 2015 alone, social ads brought in 25.14 billion U.S. dollars in total revenue; and that is projected to jump up to 41 billion in 2017. It has become an almost mandatory investment for B2C businesses.
As the newest network to join the ad game, Snapchat advertising opportunities have only been available exclusively to big brands willing and able to shell out the big bucks. What introduced itself as a $750,000 per day investment (did you pick your jaw up yet?), has since drastically dropped down to a more affordable (prepare for the jaw drop again) $50,000 one. While that may be chump change to some, the majority of companies with brands looking to get into the Snapchat video advertising space are being isolated by the depth of their pockets.
Not Your Typical Social Ad
As of now, brand executives have to go directly to Snapchat, or the owners of their “Discover” channels, to purchase ad space. They must also evaluate which Discover channel or “Live” story their target audience is most likely to tune into, and the ads will appear amongst the organic visual content the channel or story is running. This certainly isn’t the conventional way social advertising is executed.
But this is where I see the appeal: not only does the placement and delivery of the video ads seem less invasive (you can control what you watch by tapping or swiping to advance), but Snapchatters love vertical video. Regarding Snapchat’s ad platform, 3V boasts that vertical video has an “up to 9x completion rate compared to horizontal mobile video.” This is convincing many top CEO’s and marketing execs that a vertical video platform is the future of more effective, lucrative ad consumption, making Snapchat advertising and mobile devices the perfect pair for this medium.
Will Vertical Video Takeover?
This is not to say that there’s no hope for brands with smaller budgets. As history has proven over and over again, supply and demand prevails. As more substantial statistical data becomes available speaking to the success rate of Snapchat video advertising campaigns, the demand will follow. And if Snapchat plans to advance their status as the king of the vertical video castle, they will develop offerings for more affordable ad space, making it a much more even playing field for all brands to play on. As an added bonus, vertically produced video lends a whole new perspective for us to get creative with; one that doesn’t require the inconvenience of rotating your device back and forth (let’s not pretend that it isn’t annoying).
In the meantime, get familiar with Snapchat; whether for yourself, or for your business or brand. It’s a great and easy way to engage directly with your audience and give them an exclusive, more personal look into your day-to-day bustle. Plus, you’ll be one step ahead of the game when Snapchat launches a more versatile method for distributing their ad space. And that’s when you’ll call us here at New Sky Productions to help strategize and produce a killer Snapchat video ad campaign that will knock your vertical socks off. BOOM.