Social media has given birth to a new kind of celebrity.
Influencers.
But what is an influencer, exactly?
An influencer on social media has a large following (at least 1,000 people) and can sway the buying habits of people who subscribe to or follow their pages.
Remember in the 90s, when McDonald’s would run marketing campaigns with Michael Jordan? Or Pepsi’s ads with supermodel Cindy Crawford?
Those campaigns with traditional celebrities are still popular on television. However, online we’re seeing more and more brands partner with popular YouTubers, Facebookers, Instagrammers, TikTokers, and, yes, even Snapchatters. And the results speak for themselves.
Snapchat usually isn’t the first platform that comes to mind when people think of influencer marketing. After all, when you post Snaps, they only last for 24 hours before disappearing.
But the right business with the right audience can make a killing with Snapchat influencer marketing. In this article, we’ll go through a multi-step process that can help you improve your chances for Snapchat influencer success.
What is Snapchat influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing on Snapchat is the act of enlisting the aid of a popular figure on the platform and having them become something of a spokesperson for your brand. They’d either share your Snaps or make Snaps of their own, showing off your products.
On Snapchat, influencer marketing takes a lot of different forms. For example, you can get an influencer to run a takeover of your profile, where you post their content and they interact with your existing audience.
It can also feature product reviews and tutorials on the influencer’s Snaps. These reviews should provide a link back to you. There’s also Snapcodes, AR lenses, and sponsored Snaps where a potential customer simply has to swipe up to get a link.
The content created by influencers can even be featured as Snap Ads if you repurpose it as user-generated content.
Why should you consider Snapchat for influencer campaigns?
Simply put, you should consider Snapchat if you’re marketing to a younger audience. Just a few years ago, we’d have been telling you to focus exclusively on Millennials when running influencer campaigns on Snapchat. It was once considered the Millennial social network, but those demographics have shifted in recent years.
As shown in the image above, 75% of Millennials use Snapchat, but upwards of 90% of Gen Z use it. So, if you’re trying to reach a younger audience and you have a product that’s quick and easy to explain, Snapchat influencers could become an avenue to success.
8 steps to becoming a Snapchat influencer marketing master
If you’ve decided that Snapchat influencer marketing is a potential goldmine for you, then you’re going to want to get started right away. But there’s more to becoming a Snapchat influencer marketing manager than just closing your eyes and pointing at a screen or going after the users with the highest numbers of followers. Let’s dive in.
1. Outline campaign parameters.
Establishing clear campaign parameters when working on your Snapchat influencer marketing campaign is essential. This includes determining the number of images, their frequency, and your campaign length. By establishing these parameters in advance, you can ensure that influencers comprehend their responsibilities and deliverables.
For example, let’s say you’ve launched an app, and you want to get more downloads. That’d be the main campaign goal for this influencer campaign. If your app is paid, you’ll be able to easily implement a commission system for influencers. But if it’s a free app that makes money from ad revenue, you’ll need to understand the value of each download and make payment decisions based on that.
Talk to your influencers about your brand voice. For example, if you’re a family-friendly brand, you don’t want influencers running profanity-laden takeovers on your page or including adult themes or content in their reviews.
You should also give them customer demographic information and buyer personas. Chances are, your influencers have a broad audience, so let them know which subsection of their followers the influencer campaign should be directed at.
Remember, different audience segments respond well to different messaging. That’s why you need to be overly clear with your influencers to avoid wasting their time and yours.
2. Understand why your audience uses Snapchat.
If you’re going to do any marketing whatsoever, you first need to understand who you’re marketing to. These people are your bread and butter. They’re your alpha and omega — your peanut butter and jelly.
That’s why every business performs customer demographic research to form buyer personas. These profiles essentially break down the various audiences you serve, listing information like their:
- Age
- Gender
- Occupation
- Content preferences
- Preferred platforms
- Likes
- Dislikes
- Pain points
- Budget
- And more
Simply put, you have to know your ideal customer forward and backward before you run even a single ad on any platform, let alone something as specific as an influencer campaign.
The first question you’ll need to ask yourself is, “Does my audience even use Snapchat?” That’s the single most crucial point to confirm. Because if they’re not using Snapchat, you’re wasting precious time and money.
But if they use Snapchat, it’s time for a new question. Why are they using it? What are they mostly doing when they log on?
Essentially, what kind of Snapchat content adds value to their lives? Once you know that, you’ll be able to seek out influencers that create that specific kind of content and present them with your vision. It’ll be your products, their account, and a money-making venture for both of you. But to make it effective, you need a strong knowledge of who the audience is and what kind of content resonates with them.
Here’s a great example. As we mentioned, Snapchat has become one of the most popular social media platforms among young people. This makes it an ideal platform for online doctors who want to reach out to this demographic.
Influencer marketing on Snapchat can be a powerful tool for online doctors to promote their practice and attract new patients. But to do that effectively, you need to understand your ideal young patient and what they’re trying to get out of Snapchat before partnering with influencers that’ll help you reach them.
3. Choose the right influencers.
Now that you understand who your audience is and what they’re looking for, it’s time to find the right influencer to help you provide them with that content.
Snapchat influencer marketing can be a powerful way to reach younger audiences and promote niche items like fashion apparel. Something like leather jackets can easily be promoted with the right audience and influencer. With over 493 million active users, Snapchat offers a unique opportunity to connect with fashion-forward consumers interested in the latest trends and styles.
To start using Snapchat influencer marketing to promote your fashion items, the first step is to identify influencers who align with your brand and have a strong following on the platform. Look for influencers with a similar aesthetic or target audience to your brand and a history of successful collaborations with other fashion brands.
Next, work with the influencers to create compelling, engaging content showcasing your fashion items. This could include Snaps of the influencers wearing your leather jackets, showcasing different styles or colors, and highlighting the unique features of your products.
But Snapchat is a varied and diverse place. You can market more than just your fashion apparel, makeup, and electronics.
If you’re a real estate broker who wants to step up their real estate SEO game, partnering with a Snapchat influencer (who’s passionate about the industry and has a significant following) can open up new avenues for brand awareness and lead generation.
Gen Z is entering the workforce now and will be looking to buy homes, so why not work with a quality influencer who can help you push your services to those who need them?
With the right influencer, you can create compelling content that speaks to your audience’s interests, positioning your agency as the go-to source for all their real estate needs.
Whether it’s showcasing properties, providing market insights, or offering tips on buying and selling homes, Snapchat can help you connect with your audience in new engaging ways and bring traffic back to your website.
With the potential to reach millions of users, Snapchat influencer marketing can be a game-changer for real estate agencies looking to stand out in a crowded market.
No matter your niche, there should be an influencer for you looking to make some discretionary income. Maybe they’re a college student looking to make some extra cash to help cover what financial aid doesn’t. No matter their reasoning, they’re out there, and it’s your job to find your perfect influencer match.
Of course, there are ways that influencers can pull the wool over your eyes, and you’ll need to be wary. When choosing an influencer for your brand, it’s important to check if they’re using any AI-powered tools to enhance their statistics. When you speak to them, ask if they’ve ever used anything like an AI writer for their content. Typically speaking, if they’ve used one tool, they’ve used another.
If you find an influencer you want to work with, but they’re demanding upfront monetary compensation, it’s OK to be apprehensive. With unproven influencers, running a commission program is a better idea as it’s all reward with very little risk. The influencer has to prove themselves to you, and they’re only making as much as they sell.
After a highly successful campaign, you can consider offering a creator compensation before the campaign to keep them on board with your brand. At that point, you can rest assured they’ll provide ROI. But jumping in with upfront compensation for new influencers might be too risky unless they have massive name recognition.
When you advance or choose influencers with a higher following, it probably won’t be enough to offer them your products or services to barter. You’ll need to enter into paid contracts. This will depend on how important the influencers are to you. You’ll need to understand how to pay contractors, especially if your campaign involves influencers from abroad.
When choosing your influencer, pick someone who:
- Is connected to your niche
- Has a sizable audience
- Has an audience that overlaps with yours
- Agrees on payment terms
- Will follow your parameters
- Aligns with your brand image
4. Think outside the box.
When starting a Snapchat influencer marketing campaign, don’t be afraid to think outside the box. When it comes to the influencers you bring on, as long as the audience and industry overlap, even the craziest idea might be worth trying.
Depending on your niche, not all influencers need to be human. Yes, you read that right.
A great example of this is the pet care niche. For instance, Pumpkin offers insurance for cats, and its service page features reviews from “Gingersnap’s Mom” and “Jax’s Mom,” which highlight pictures of friendly felines rather than their human family members.
This can be expanded to brand ambassadors and other influencers where the animal does the “talking.”
It’s a well-known fact that people love to make social media pages for dogs, cats, babies, and all manner of entertaining personalities that could become an influencer under the right circumstances.
Many pet influencers work for free products or commissions. Be smart and think outside the box, but don’t throw money away on a creator that doesn’t align with your target audience.
5. Leverage Snapchat’s native tools
Snapchat influencer marketing can be improved upon by using the native tools found on the social platform.
For example, you can create your own custom AR experience through the Lens Web Builder. It includes a lot of free shapes, objects, and animations to implement with influencer messaging. This can help give the content a fresh and personalized look and feel.
Influencers can use SnapChat’s editor to include text in their posts. If you coordinate, they could even create that content in your brand colors to help bridge the gap between them and you.
Snapchat also allows influencers to create posts with swipe-up links. If someone is interested in what the Snap influencer is saying, they can swipe up to continue to your landing page or website.
6. Edit content while encouraging creativity
While having a solid content strategy for your Snapchat influencer marketing is important, it’s equally important to have input on what your influencers are doing. This ensures that their messaging doesn’t negatively impact your brand.
Of course, you can provide these parameters right at the beginning in a brand-style book. This outlines what your brand is and isn’t. But you should also ask to see influencer content before it goes live. Because the influencer is working with you, anything they do or say is representative of your brand.
That doesn’t mean script them or get them to read commercials for you. Influencers are only effective when authentic. The entire point of working with an influencer is that their audience trusts them. So you need to walk a fine line by keeping them on brand without hindering their creativity and authenticity.
To that end, keep your edits and comments strictly to things like the brand’s audience, overall tone, and specific topics to avoid. For example, if your company doesn’t get involved in politics, make sure your influencers aren’t inserting political messaging into their content on your behalf.
7. Measure your results.
It’s not enough to simply choose an influencer and hope for the best. To truly optimize your Snapchat influencer marketing efforts, you’ll want to dive into the data and use business analytics to measure your results.
The only way to move forward successfully is to measure your influencer results at regular intervals. That means reviewing what results have come from which influencer, what they were paid for, and how this impacted your bottom line.
Once you review your analytics, you can make judgment calls on what you should continue doing, sink more effort into, or eliminate.
Maybe one of your influencers surprised you with how well they moved the product, while another personality from whom you expected great things produced disappointing results.
Once you see those results, you can decide whether to invest more resources into the influencer with positive results and drop the one who isn’t moving any merchandise.
8. Look beyond Snapchat
Snapchat can be an excellent opportunity for influencer marketing success, but you shouldn’t limit yourself to just one social media platform. If your audience has a sizable presence on other social platforms, then it may be time to start expanding your influencer reach to approach this strategy from different angles.
Other short-form video content platforms like TikTok or Instagram can help you reach wider audiences. Including several social media platforms in your influencer marketing strategy can be a good idea, so try to pair up with influencers with a large following across multiple channels.
@itsamtc be your own boss @tailorbrands ???? #tailorbrands #fyp #foryou #xyzbca ♬ Hip Hop with impressive piano sound(793766) – Dusty Sky
Tailor Brands does a great job at finding influencers that are relevant to its niche and that also have a great reach across multiple socials. The company collaborated with TikTok influencer @itsamtc, who has 1.4M followers on the app and 6.9K subscribers on Snapchat.
Someone like this could run influencer campaigns for you on multiple platforms, bringing the power of multiple audiences to bear for you. So don’t limit yourself to just Snapchat. Once you’ve mastered Snapchat, continue to spread your influence with influencers.
Key takeaway: Leverage Snapchat influencer marketing for out-of-the-box campaigns.
A lot of people think that Snapchat’s temporary short form video content doesn’t lend itself well to the world of influencer marketing. But nothing could be further from the truth.
If you follow the eight steps listed above, you’ll create a winning Snapchat influencer marketing campaign that can push you to the next level and introduce you to new segments of your audience.
Learn more about influencer marketing: Influencer Marketing 101
