Is Snapchat Another Platform for Digital Marketers?

Snapchat is an application that allows users to exchange photos among their friends and the photos disappears within 10 seconds once they open it.

Snapchat works differently from Facebook and Twitter. It works more like a stress-free program where people talks to each other privately, and no trace thereafter, and nobody judges anything. Unlike Facebook where your message is being "broadcast" to all your friends and you feel "stressed" and would only want to show the best of you instead. Probably this is one of the reasons people loves Snapchat.

Snapchat is easy to use and the concept of self-deleted images is very new. Many social-networking application or chat program does not have this concept and users will still need to go through housekeeping there and then. Snapchat's users do not need to worry about this.

People can post anything and laugh it off and no trace after 10 seconds (unless the receiver takes a screenshot). Snapchat is considered as a very "safe" program.

It is also "safe" because Snapchat only stores very basic information regarding the users like username, password, emails, phone number and age. Users are not tracked while using Snapchat, no profile is being built to identify the users.

Currently, Snapchat is a free application but to continue as a free application business model, it will need to consider one of the options such as delivering advertisements to their users.

Having a very "safe" program for users proves to be a hard time for marketers as we will not know the demographics of the users and it will be difficult to reach out to the right audience.

Due to its user base which is currently age between 13 to 23 year olds. The users are still very young and they probably turn out not to have high spending power. Marketing using Snapchat may not be a good platform for many industries except F&B like fast-food joints, apparel or the entertainment sector.

Furthermore, Snapchat works like a “gossip” program. Marketers will find difficulty in reaching out to the users as they probably would not be interested in seeing the ads at all.

In conclusion, marketing using Snapchat probably will probably work for industries like F&B (e.g. fast-food joints). Other industries may not find advertising in Snapchat suitable.