Snapchat, the youngest of the social media powerhouses that is taking the industry like a storm.
Valued at around 15 billion dollars, Snapchat is sure to hold its position for a long time.
This article will run you through the basics of Snapchat and the ways in which you can actually start making money from it.
Contents
What Is Snapchat?
Released in 2011 alongside a tonne of other messaging apps & social media platforms that never succeeded and eventually fizzled out, Snapchat became very popular very quickly.
Now, hundreds of millions of messages are exchanged each day and Snapchat attracts an equal number of monthly users.
But what actually is Snapchat?
How Snapchat Works
Well, put simply, Snapchat allows you to communicate via pictures and videos, sending messages to your friends in a visual format.
Snapchat also more recently introduced a ‘chat’ feature through which users are not required to send any visual information and can communicate via text, as they would with other platforms.
The difference between Snapchat and other social media platforms, the difference that set it apart and has fueled its rapid increase in popularity, is the these photos and videos can only be viewed for a limited time.
After a few seconds, they disappear and can’t be reopened.
Discover Feature
More recently, Snapchat introduced its ‘Discover’ feature which gives companies the opportunity to display content to be viewed by all Snapchat users.
Companies such as Buzzfeed and Mashable are able to present their content in this discover section and users can interact with it/subscribe to it.
This section is accessible to every single Snapchat user, thus it has an enormous reach.
Any account that features in this section is therefore able to attract an incredible amount of attention.
How To Make Money Using Snapchat
Now, you may be wondering how on earth these facts are going to earn you any money, and that’s exactly what we’ll be covering next.
Building An Audience
As with any other platform, the key to earning money as a Snapchat figure is to build a decent sized audience.
Having a widespread influence over people opens up doors to earn money in absolutely any entrepreneurial field and Snapchat is no different.
First of all, download the Snapchat app (for free) and create your account.
You’ll have the option to add everybody from your phone’s contacts that has a Snapchat and I would strongly advise you doing so.
People are far more likely to accept a friend request than they are to actually send one, thus you should maximise your reach instantly by adding anybody that you know.
There are no penalties for adding your friends on Snapchat, unlike on sites such as Twitter and Facebook where your friend/follower ratio may have a negative impact on your influencer score.
Once you’ve added some people, you now need to actually start producing content.
Content Creation & Monetisation
Creating content to publish to Snapchat can be difficult if you have no experience in the field whatsoever.
First and foremost, being consistent is absolutely key to building up a decent sized follower base.
The biggest Snapchat accounts post to their Snapchat stories (a public series of Snaps that lasts for 24 hours and is only viewable to Snapchat followers) multiple times every single day.
Audiences will be more interested in you as a Snapchatter if you’re posting at least once a day.
If you fail to post for a few days, the followers you once had may get bored/lose touch with you and decide to remove you as a friend.
Monetising Content
Snapchat is an excellent way to combine personal, casual content with marketing.
What I mean by this is that, while you can upload product tutorials or information about your business endeavours, you’re also able to upload photos and videos that show you as a person, not just a business.
This can be pictures of your breakfast, cat or your new house – anything that you wish to share.
Check out Mattia Polibio Snapchat, if you want to have an idea of the potential you can get with snapchat.
The beauty of doing this is that, although it doesn’t seem like it, everything you post contributes to your business marketing.
Even mundane photos such as those of your pets will help to build rapport with your audience and inadvertently spark their interest in your other works.
Content Marketing Strategy
It’s important to try to publish content that people all over are showing an interest in.
For instance, it’s no good constantly posting pictures of your car if nobody within your reach is interested in cars.
Research has shown that Snapchat users favour pet-related content, as well as attractive images of men and women. Makes sense. A lot of adult entertainers even use it to make money selling nudes.
So, you’ve created an account, added your friends but you’re still not getting enough followers.
What next?
How To Make Money On Snapchat By Growing Your Audience
How to Boost Your Follower Count
Firstly, I’d recommend posting your Snapcode/Snapchat username absolutely everywhere – on all of your social media outlets, all of your profile descriptions and even tweeting/making posts promoting your Snapchat.
A ‘Snapcode’ is a little square QR-type code that Snapchatters can take a picture of (through Snapchat) and instantly add you as a friend.
I’d recommend publishing this too as it makes adding people as a friend incredible easy, catering to the general public’s lazy habits.
It can also be very useful when asking people to add you in-person as all they need to do is take out their phone and snap a picture of your code.
Shout Outs
Secondly, you can begin to ‘swap’ (or pay for) shoutouts with other users. If you have a decent follower base of, say, over a thousand, you’ll easily be able to exchange shoutouts with Snapchat users that have more followers.
This involves simply receiving a shoutout in exchange for one – a shoutout being you posting a Snap to your story telling people to follow the other person’s account.
If you can’t offer a shoutout of much worth because your follower base is pretty small, you can instead offer other incentives such as discounted prices as well as actual cash, paying Snapchatters to shout you out.
Making Money With Snapchat
Making Money
So now you know how to attract a decent amount of followers, but how can you actually start earning money with Snapchat?
Firstly, you’re going to want to have another business project running alongside Snapchat that you can promote.
This may be a blog, an eBook or an online store – whatever it is, it would be foolish to build up a large following and not use it to promote some other revenue stream.
Promos & Limited Time Discounts
One great way to increase your sales in any one of these fields is to offer discounts through Snapchat for a limited time.
A post such as ‘All copies of my book, ____ , are HALF PRICE for the next hour, don’t miss out! [link to your book here]’ will encourage users to go over and purchase the product before it’s too late, even if they don’t really want the product.
Affiliate Marketing
Next up, Snapchat is a great outlet for affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing involves promoting other companies’ products and being paid each time somebody makes a purchase through you.
As an affiliate, you will find companies that sell products relating to your niche (such as oak desks if you run an online wooden furniture store) and sign up to their affiliate programs, which virtually every company has.
This is completely free to do and, should your application succeed, you will be send URL links to products of theirs that you can use on your website.
These links will be tailored specifically to you as a marketer – www.oakfurniture.com/oakdesk/kingpassive10discount – for example.
Each time a person follows these links and makes a purchase, you will be paid commission for your service as an advertiser.
Some affiliate programs pay affiliate marketers simply for the views they attract, not just purchases.
Build Trust With Your Snapchat Audience
Building an audience that trusts you on Snapchat will open the opportunity to begin operating as an affiliate marketer.
You don’t need to be posting links every single day and I’d strongly advise against doing this. Instead, try to drop subtle links to products around once every week/two, or more if you post very frequently.
This will ensure that people are seeing these links and considering checking them out without spamming their Snapchat feed with promos and making them want to delete you.
Be sure to implement affiliate links that relate closely to your niche.
It’s pointless offering affiliate links to dog-related products if your Snapchat has absolutely nothing to do with dogs.
Keep your audience very closely in mind when applying to affiliate links and be sure to only sign up to those that you’re sure they’d be interested in.
