Digital Marketing | Social Media
What to Use For Your Social Media Strategy?
Like any form of online marketing, the world of social media is constantly changing, evolving and throwing new curveballs for marketers to tackle. And it’s our job to keep up to date and evolve with them! Hooray!
Snapchat and Instagram have a history - one we cannot ignore.
With the launch of Instagram Stories earlier this year in a similar Snapchat format, both of these social media platforms have been in direct competition with each other. Even making jokes at each other recognising this. They both offer instant content posting, fun filters and what’s most important to us, a powerful platform for brand awareness.
So which platform should you choose? Instagram Stories or Snapchat? There’s an argument for both and that’s exactly what we’re going to examine now.
Who and where are your customers?
We’re starting off with a basic pointer, but an important one nonetheless.
Snapchat boasts a largely young demographic, with a 72% predicted adoption rate for 12-24 yr olds in January 2017. Geofilters also offer the option for businesses to create a filter for users to use in a location. Custom-built Geofilters aren’t a feature Instagram Stories provides (yet) giving Snapchat a one-up to everyday businesses.
Instagram Stories on the other hand has recently hit 250 million daily users, but Instagram Stories reaches a broader and more varied audience. 59% of all 18-29 year olds online use Instagram, but more interestingly, 33% of 30-49 year olds are also active on Instagram. Instagram Stories also offers users the option to click-through to a brand’s website in stories - Making it a great option for product or e-commerce based brands.
‘Two-In-One’: Instagram Stories
One of the biggest advantages of using Instagram Stories over Snapchat is that it tackles ‘two in one’. You don’t need two separate apps for your businesses’ social media strategy. Well that’s if you’re using Instagram in your marketing strategy in the first place!
It’s simply a little bit more manageable if your social media strategy is already in place for Instagram. You’ve likely already got a following for your business on Instagram, meaning you’ve already got a ‘head-start’ and can get going straight away posting content to your audience via Instagram stories.
A More Personable Social Media Strategy?
Where Snapchat differs from Instagram is that businesses can easily ‘snap’ their customers.
Snapchat is instantly more personable and offers the chance for businesses to interact with individual customers directly. You can show the faces behind your business and it offers you the chance to ‘put a face’ to your brand directly in conversation with your customer.
If you’re bakery for example and a customer wanted to know what cakes you have on offer, you could ‘snap’ them a picture or video showcasing your delicious goods.
Similarly, if you work for a fast fashion start-up and a customer would like an update on their order, you could snap back a picture of the item packaged up or a video of you sticking on a shipping label. Naturally, all of this depends on your resources.
Influencer Marketing: Which Platform Are They On?
You might not have considered the impact of influencer marketing on your overall social media strategy, specifically with Snapchat or Instagram, but influencers are just as big on Facebook and Twitter as they are on Instagram/Snapchat.
Find the influencers that matter to your organisation and learn what platforms they are on. Chances are, they probably prefer one over the other. Choose wisely, tag them in your posts and form a social media strategy that includes them on either Instagram and Snapchat.
D.J. Khaled anyone?
But how to choose between Instagram and Snapchat?
Choosing between Snapchat and Instagram isn’t a clear cut decision. A great Social Media Strategy revolves around your customer, discovering where they are, what they want and delivering that great content that builds your organisation!
Generally Instagram and Snapchat arguably work better as part of a brand awareness phase. Clickable links within stories are only available to verified accounts on Instagram Stories and you will also find this with Snapchat stories.
Which do you prefer? Snapchat or Instagram?
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