Attention Brand Managers & CMOs: 3 Tips on Leveraging Snapchat’s New Discover Feature for an Enhanced Customer Experience

As a Brand Manager, you know your high value markets are using social media and new messaging apps such as Snapchat to talk about you, your brands, and their experiences, all in real-time.
Snapchat’s new Discover feature that delivers curated content opens up new avenues for branded content. As a graduate student at Northwestern University in the IMC program and from my past work experience as a Marketing PR and Social Media strategist, I found two articles to support this topic, that I think you’ll find interesting.

The first article was one I found was Snapchat Adds News, Entertainment Content To Messaging Service on Business Insider, which originally appeared on Reuters. This talks about news from January 2015: Snapchat – the most actively growing social messaging service has partnered with CNN, ESPN, Yahoo, Warner Music and 7 other media companies to feature videos and articles on its cellular messaging service. The social messaging app views itself more as a blend between a media company and a messaging platform, and wants to position itself away from social media company by giving power to the editorial staff that chooses what public content the users see. This is interesting because the app is going the traditional route, choosing curated content over socially generated content, possibly lending itself more credibility by doing this.

Source: https://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com/tag/tom-fishburne/

The second one I liked is an infographic followed by a write-up on The Shrinking Attention Spans of the humans by NBC News' Alexa Keyes (@alexa_keyes). Did you know that as humans, our average attention span is 8 seconds?! That of the average goldfish is 9 seconds! (National Center for Biotechnology Information: the U.S. National Library of Medicine)

This poses a great challenge to content producers and distributors. As marketers, we no longer have the luxury of time when it comes to making an impact!

Based on these two articles and on my grad-school learnings at Northwestern, here are 3 Action Items that all Brand Managers & CMOs should consider, given the volatile & dynamic media environment:

• Invest in Quality Content - Content is still King and customers will still invest their time if you give them a compelling enough reason to.

•  Provide An Experience - Let your audience take-away more than just a message.

• Leverage Celebrity Power - Get a celebrity to endorse your brand by taking over the Snapchat channel as a guest editor for a day. Offer sneak peaks & other exclusives!

Real-time engagement is the way to go, and with plummeting attention spans, marketers are not left with much time to make an impact. Leveraging Snapchat’s new feature may be the best way to reach out to primarily women, between the ages of 13-25, considering this demographic dominates Snapchat’s 100 million and growing user base.

Yashna Malhotra is a Masters student at Northwestern University’s Medill School, studying Integrated Marketing Communications. She is also pursuing a specialization in Media Management from Kellogg School of Business.

She is an experienced Social Media and Public Relations professional with three years of work experience with prestigious brands in the realms of hospitality, lifestyle, fashion and non-profit in Mumbai, India.

If you have a question or would like to connect, feel free to reach out to me:
Email: yashnamalhotra2015@u.northwestern.edu, 
Twitter: @YashnaIMC
Professional: Linkedin

What Chief Content Creators can learn from TV Development

Creating captivating content for a brand isn't as hard as it looks - just flip on your television sets and watch some factual programming. As a television development manager, I've always found that what's true is what rates, and brands can use this knowledge to leverage compelling content for all their channels. By putting aside traditional marketing scripts and finding the truth behind your brand, content will drive value.

In a recent Fast Company article, “How Chief Content Officers Can Resurrect Marketing Communications, the idea of creating “not boring” content was hailed as a revolutionary idea. As with most flashy new buzzwords in marketing, the article focused a lot on the “why” and very little on the enigma that is the “how-to.” So, if you’re one of those C-suites that they were talking about in the article and are still scratching your head – I’m here to fill in the gaps.

As a television and film development manager I have often found myself on corporate websites/social media for products and brands thinking how they missed the mark with corny or cliché content yet again. To better understand content creation and how to apply this mindset, the basic tenants of my own job should be explained; it’s one part journalist, one part subculture interloper, and one major part storyteller. If you can encourage those on your content team to think in this mindset, you will captivate your audience.

• Journalist: Scripted is unbearable if done badly, and that happens more often than not. If there is an opportunity for your company/brand to tell a real story with real characters and real drama, conflict, and story arc, tell that story! The kind of content that touches the most emotional side of an audience does not come with airbrushing and professional lighting.

• Subculture Interloper: I’m not talking tattoos and anarchists – what I mean is the sub-communities and pre-existing cultures that are worth exploring. Your team can find these by exercising a healthy sense of curiosity, meeting as many new and different people as possible, and even asking friends and family about their lives. Content about subculture isn’t limiting the audience to that particular group – quite the opposite, the most powerful content transcends demographics, and can speak to any viewer.

• Storyteller: At the end of the day, you have to remember your content is only as powerful as the story behind it. This content shouldn’t sell the consumer on a product; it should act as a conduit that pushes a consumer into a mindset, whether that’s inspired or infuriated - that is up to you as the storyteller to convey. Once you’ve primed your customer, bring in the marketing side and give them a way to take action based on that story.

Don’t just try to be “not boring,” try to be authentic, true, and daring in your content. Don’t hire just marketing professionals, look to journalists, writers, and film people to add to your mix. If you follow those steps, real content can turn into real business. 

Meghan Cassin is a part-time graduate student pursuing a M.S. in Integrated Marketing & Communications  at Northwestern University. Meghan began her career in television development for National Geographic Channel and is currently at Siskel/Jacobs Productions.

Follow Meghan on Twitter or LinkedIn