This whitepaper by Elon Media Analytics students describes the utility of Snapchat for corporate PR

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[Snapchat for Corporate Business]
White Paper
Discover the Power of Snapchat for
Corporate Business
How Public Relations can use Snapchat Marketing to
improve their brand
Lauren Cuddy | Megan Garnache
October 11, 2016

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[Snapchat for Corporate Business]
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Social media has changed the way users obtain and distribute information. In the
corporate world, public relations outlets are partnering their brand with a growing
media outlet to expand their PR reach. They are embracing newer social media
platforms, such as Snapchat, (as a content provider) and utilizing the Discover feature
which provides the opportunity to engage with the target audience the company is
trying to reach.
Since January 2015, Snapchat has been bringing its news to people with
Snapchat Discover, which has 60 million active users as of 2016.1
These users are mainly
millennials, or adults ages 35-54 who own a smartphone and want to stay up to date on
their favorite brands and businesses.
Snapchat Discover combines popular magazines, networks and television in a
"redesign of its omni-entertainment app". You can select from a menu of outlets,
including National Geographic, Daily Mail, NFL and various other businesses who
showcase their brand using short videos.
Snapchat has made it possible for people to instantaneously find out about
things the moment they happen, and it provides an interactive platform for companies
to engage with audiences to build your brand image. It is an authentic way for
businesses to represent their brand and it humanizes a brand and offers a great
opportunity to show your company’s culture.2
1 Can Discover transform Snapchat into a news source?
2 PR: Should You Use Snapchat in Your Campaigns?

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[Snapchat for Corporate Business]
Never before have businesses
needed to use Snapchat like they do in
the digital driven era in 2016.
Nevertheless, there is an important
question to answer: how do you use
Snapchat to effectively gain consumer
interest to enhance a brand's image and
increase engagement?
Figure 1 2016 Discover page
Figure 2 property of tubefilter.com
We will explain who uses
Snapchat Discover, how PR can use the
Snapchat Discover feature, what a
business should aim to accomplish with
Snapchat Discover and how it can
accomplish a company's business goals.

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[Snapchat for Corporate Business]
INTRODUCTION
3
What is Snapchat?
Snapchat is a picture- and video-
sharing social media platform. Because
of its timely nature (Snaps disappear
after a maximum of 10 seconds, while
Stories last only 24 hours), content
shared through Snapchat is exclusive.
Sharing behind-the-scenes footage and
sneak peeks with audiences through
Snaps and Stories can increase
engagement and get consumers excited
about a brand. "Snapchat boasts 150
million daily users by some accounts,
surpassing Twitter’s daily user count,
and was recently valued at $18 billion
3 What is Snapchat
after raising $1.8 billion in cash earlier in
2016."
While Snapchat provides entertainment,
it has become a vital public relations
tool that is used to develop a clear
brand image by engaging with
consumers through an image and video-
based platform. The Discover feature is
especially vital for this – it allows brands
to link to off-app content such as
articles hosted on their own website.

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[Snapchat for Corporate Business]
Why your business should
use Snapchat
Social media managers currently
using Snapchat stress the importance of
the channel’s real-time culture. Because
fans think of it as a messaging app,
managers emphasized the need to
operate “in the now.” Snapchat fans
respond to Snaps in the same real-time
fashion they would a text message.
The popularity of Snapchat is a
result of the app’s innovation to send
images that last for a few seconds and
then disappears forever. An added
feature of Snapchat, Snapchat stories,
lasts only 24 hours and is a string of
snaps used to “create a video
narrative”. These stories are also part of
the Discover feature—where businesses
can create content that will reach nearly
every user on Snapchat. There are over
1 billion views of Snapchat stories each
day, and brands are utilizing the app to
“surprise and delight their audience and
grow awareness for their brand”.4
Every
business should take advantage of what
this free application can provide.
4 5 Ways to Use Snapchat for Business
Who is using Snapchat in
2016?
More than 100 million people
use Snapchat per day, with 200 million
active users worldwide. Of those users,
60 percent are under 25 years old, with
nearly a quarter of those users still in
high school – unsurprisingly, 37 percent
of Snapchat users are between the ages
of 18 to 24.
Figure 3 Snapchat Statistics by Global Web
Index View here:

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[Snapchat for Corporate Business]
The growth of the Snapchat
platform has attracted corporate
businesses including the National
Basketball Association, Acura, Heineken
and GrubHub.
But new users joining Snapchat
are starting to skew a little older – more
than half of new users are older than
25. Because these users are more likely
to be financially independent, using
Snapchat for brand awareness will help
encourage them to shop certain ways.
Gender also plays a role. Though
Snapchat itself does not publish official
gender demographics, a 2015 survey by
Harvard University suggested that 42
percent of studied women 18 to 29
years old had Snapchat accounts while
58 percent of the men in that age group
said they use Snapchat.
How Public Relations can use
Snapchat
Public relations can use
Snapchat to develop content, come up
with creative concepts, invite users to
engage, give followers a reason to
follow with a call to action and maintain
their follower base. By updating the
Discover feature regularly and giving
exclusive content to people who engage
with it, the consumers will remain
engaged and even increase in number.
For example, occasionally
offering exclusive coupon codes
through Discover encourages users to
continue engaging with the Discover
feature. This allows you to pass on the
brand message while pleasing your
consumers with incentives to continue
following your Snapchat activities.

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[Snapchat for Corporate Business]
Why Should Public Relations
use Snapchat?
Public relations managers can
use Snapchat in a variety of ways.
Snapchat can help create
awareness of a brand – by incorporating
Snapchat into existing marketing,
consumers who already use Snapchat
will be able to interact with that feature
and learn more about the brand.
This will also help to build
consumer recognition. By showing off a
brand through Snapchat and doing so
consistently, people who interact with
the brand through the Discover feature
will recognize the brand both on and off
of Snapchat.
Additionally, curious consumers
who may not have bought from a brand
in the past but do engage with Snapchat
may see Snapchat-based marketing and
be more inclined to check it out. This
can help grow a larger customer base.
Once the customers are secured,
Snapchat can be used to keep them
there – for example, by using Discover
to tease and eventually launch a new
product. Snapchat can also help to
promote new businesses within and
without of your own business.
Finally, Snapchat can help to
revitalize an old brand – because of
Snapchat's younger user base, brands
that haven't changed or updated their
images can reach out to potential
customers they might not have been
able to reach otherwise through
Snapchat. This allows the brand to seem
"younger" and more with-the-times
instead of remaining strictly analog.

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[Snapchat for Corporate Business]
How Snapchat will help you
accomplish your business
goals?
A business, if utilizing Snapchat
correctly, will be able to grow its brand,
reach out to users in creative ways
while influencing them to purchase
whatever it is offering, provide
transparency through behind-the-
scenes looks at its process and offer
exclusive content found nowhere but
Snapchat.
If a brand is consistently offering
rewards for people who engage (such
as, as mentioned before, coupon
codes), those people will tell other
people about it. As the message
spreads, the brand will grow. To keep
that happening, brands need to be
creative in how they reach out – using
the same approach will grow stale
quickly. Inventive ways of keeping
consumers engaged, such as contests,
will be important here.
It's also important to make sure
your brand appears trustworthy. To do
this, giving behind-the-scenes looks at
the company itself and what its process
is will be important.
Result
By engaging with consumers via
Snapchat, especially Discover, a brand
can expect increased consumer loyalty
and trust as well as a more solid brand
image. Snapchat is a way to show
consumers a tailored view of a brand's
image, meaning it can control how it
appears to the public at the ground
level.

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[Snapchat for Corporate Business]
Conclusion
Snapchat should not only be considered as a social media platform: it can also be
a powerful way for Public Relations to:
1. Improve the strength of their company image
2. Reach out to new potential customers and gain a percentage of new
followers
3. Share unique content to provide viewer with a vivid experience.
4. Drive visits and ultimately increase sales.
To get your company started on Snapchat, you can go here for a guide that will take you
through each step. Get snapping!
Figure 4 property of panda security at pandasecurity.com/mediacenter

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[Snapchat for Corporate Business]
Sources Cited
Abbruzzese, Jason (27 August
2014). “Report: Snapchat Valued at
$10 Billion in Latest
Investment”. Mashable. Mashable.
Retrieved 29 October 2014,
from http://mashable.com/2014/08/2
6/snapchat-10-billion-
valuation/#owDJcxI1GkqN
Buyer, L. (2016, January). Digital
Marketers are Waking up to
Snapchat for SocialPR . Retrieved
October 8, 2016,
from http://socialprchat.com/5-
snapchat-pr-secrets-digital-
marketers-are-flocking-to-snapchat-
are-you/
Colao, J.J. (November 27, 2012).
“Snapchat: The Biggest No-Revenue
Mobile App Since
Instagram”. Forbes.
Retrieved December 25,
from http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjco
lao/2012/11/27/snapchat-the-
biggest-no-revenue-mobile-app-
since-instagram/#39badd483ac1
Colao, J.J ( Dec 14,
2012.) “Snapchat Adds Video, Now
Seeing 50 Million Photos A
Day”, Forbes. Retrieved May 16,
2016,
from http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjco
lao/2012/12/14/snapchat-adds-
video-now-seeing-50-million-photos-
a-day/#3b7b367a213a
Conlin, B. (n.d.). Cheat Sheet:
Snapchat for Marketing and PR |
Cision. Retrieved October 8, 2016,
from http://www.cision.com/us/2014/
05/cheat-sheet-snapchat-for-
marketing-and-pr/
Frier, S. (n.d.). Snapchat User
`Stories' Fuel 10 Billion Daily Video
Views ... Retrieved October 10,
2016, from
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/art
icles/2016-04-28/snapchat-user-
content-fuels-jump-to-10-billion-daily-
video-views

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[Snapchat for Corporate Business]
Get to know the writers
Megan Garnache is a senior journalism major with a minor in creative writing.
Lauren Cuddy is a senior at Elon University majoring in Strategic Communications. She
worked at WCVB Channel 5 in Boston the past two summers as a Sales and Marketing
Intern, where she developed multimedia skills and produced content using a variety of
platforms.
Connect with Lauren on Twitter @cuddysays
Copyright Information © 2016

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