Once again, social networks have entered a crossroads
A decade-long career as a Web 2.0 ruler has not only reshaped the shape of the Internet, but also completely changed the way everyone looks at the world - however, the rapid growth of dividends is destined to become the norm, when "participation" is no longer a unilateral criterion for measuring the success or failure of social networks, when "business value" has become more and more the focus of capital and brand, in the era of the wind is a decade of SNS upstarts, where to go?
The answer is more optimistic than expected. The SNS platform, which bids farewell to the growth dividend period and enters a mature period, has shown a strong business vitality that far exceeds the most optimistic expectations of most traditional capitals – among them, Snapchat, a young social networking service provider that regards "burning after reading" as its core competitiveness and emphasizes "minimizing applications", is one of the examples of outstanding performance.
On the cusp of the storm, "burn after reading"
On Christmas Day 2011, a large number of secondary school students in Europe and North America received a hot gift:
The iPhone 4S that has just been released. Or downgrade it by a discounted iPhone 4.
In the face of the 300,000-pixel lens on the front of this phone, these young users who held the mobile Internet in the palm of their hands for the first time quickly realized the practical significance of the "selfie" function - taking selfies in the frame anytime and anywhere is just the beginning, and sending these photos taken at will to friends is the real need of Web2.0 natives. Obviously, Facebook, which even parents are playing, is not a good choice, and the selfie exchange platform that attaches importance to personal privacy and can keep secrets for these restless users has become a just need of that era.
So Snapchat (then called Picaboo) came on. With the simple operation of clicking and shooting, as well as the "burn after reading" function that can be understood as soon as it is used, this simple app quickly became popular in the Western youth community: in January 2012, Snapchat (Picaboo) DAU, which was launched just half a year ago, increased from a thousand people to more than 20,000 people, and "read and burn" became the most popular social password for Western underage users in that era, and Snapchat's young SNS dominator road began.
This is just the beginning. What happened next once again proved that the timing was right to do the function to the extreme for the user population, even if it seemed fleeting, it could still give birth to a great winner: "Burn after reading" did not make Snapchat a short-lived platform for early death. On the contrary, as of Q3 2020, Snapchat has 306 million active users worldwide, 5 billion Snaps are sent every day, and Snapchat users have more than 6 billion AR interactions per day.
In the United States, for example, Snapchat now accounts for about half of the nation's smartphone users; in addition, more than 90% of 13- to 24-year-olds in the United States open Snapchat every day, compared with the "traditional" SNS platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Messenger, Snapchat's young users (13-17 years old) are twice the size of the total number of these three. In addition, in countries such as Europe, the Middle East, Australia and India, Snapchat also has a surprising number of young fans.
But that's not all. After ten years of development, Snapchat's audience is not limited to Europe and the United States, the functional selling point is not only selfies, as the product promotion value of the SNS platform, it is enough to make most brands smile.
It's not just the youthful Snapchat
Like many popular apps that were born and raised on campus in California, winning the U.S. market is only the first step for Snapchat to reach its peak, and going to the world to be favored by global target users means real success — and Snapchat has really done it.
Too complicated to mention, just look at the performance of the Middle East market, anyone can understand how good Snapchat's globalization strategy is: among the 13-24-year-olds in the UAE, 60% are loyal users of Snapchat, while in Saudi Arabia, the proportion of users aged 13-34 is directly more than 90%; considering that there are more than 300 million Internet users in the entire Middle East, Gen Z and millennials occupy an unshakable position in the e-commerce consumer market. The brand promotion value that Snapchat controls in the Middle East Internet world is naturally self-evident.
Taking e-commerce as an example, like most SNS platforms that have a firm foothold in the international Internet environment, Snapchat has a diversified form of advertising packaging, providing a one-stop solution for the overseas marketing of various products: whether it is through the promotion of the early stage of the package to enter the publicity warm-up, or in the formal promotion period through a variety of advertising programs to increase new users and improve retention rates, or in the subsequent operation period to attract registered users to convert into paid members and monetize non-paying users. Snapchat provides a complete program of creative, delivery strategy and targeting to fill the promotion demands of customers at different stages - whether it is a vlog or a novel reading App, you can find a complete product promotion plan on Snapchat.
Not only that, in addition to the first 6 seconds of non-skippable Common Ads (vertical full-screen video ads), the acclaimed Story Ads (similar to the brand area, presented in the Stories placement, one of the five core sections of Snapchat), and the Collection Ads (which support multi-dimensional display of application functions and App jump downloads), as a social platform for selfies, Snapchat naturally doesn't ignore the advertising potential of this core selling point — yes, the Snapchat AR filter, which is well received by platform users, represents more than just entertainment.
From the perspective of user difficulty and actual landing effect, Snapchat AR filter is undoubtedly one of the most successful examples of augmented reality technology to be practical at this stage - since its launch, Millennials and Z generation Snapchat users have made countless dazzling new tricks through various AR filters, at the same time, the product marketing potential of Snapchat AR filters has begun to show more and more dew.
For example, users can interact deeply with brand-related content characters (or ICON) through interactive game filters, and then record short films with brand promotion BGM to share with Snapchat friends, so as to achieve spontaneous communication and promotion ignition operations - most importantly, these seemingly complex and time-consuming production processes can use Snapchat's backstage Snap publisher to generate ideas. And the professional team provides material solutions for the needs of the brand; in other words, in order to let the brand wake up the promotion trend of secondary creation in the young user group, Snapchat has long been prepared with AR filters.
It is precisely with perfect service functions and advanced marketing methods driven by avant-garde technology that in recent years, Snapchat has been favored by more and more brands in terms of product promotion and promotion - including both well-known consumer electronics brands such as Samsung, mainstream fashion sports brands such as Puma, and even Western-style fast food brands Burger King and fashion e-commerce zaful, which have achieved excellent marketing publicity in the Middle East e-commerce market.
According to Snapchat's statistics in 2020, the purchasing power of global millennials and Z generations is at least more than $1 trillion; and on Snapchat, AR filters maintain a high degree of popularity in the Middle East throughout the year, and when the shopping festival in line with international consumption habits arrives, it has won unprecedented popularity, just during the recent 2021 Ramadan, Snapchat users from Saudi Arabia watched AR filters more than 90 billion times. Considering the enthusiasm of young users in the Middle East for Snapchat, there is no need to emphasize how tailor-made product launches mean.
That's not all. The success of the Middle East market, for Snapchat, is only part of the internationalization strategy - from Mexico to India, from Latin America to Oceania, in the past decade, Snapchat has successfully won the favor of a large number of young users around the world, and has successfully become one of the preferred marketing platforms for global brands to go global.
From "burning after reading" to the interactive revolution of AR vision
Online social networks, built through real-life friendships, are the core elements of Snapchat's success, and it's not hard to imagine that this kind of like-minded close friend atmosphere is undoubtedly of great help to the brand communication marketing model with dots and faces.
According to the official statistics of the Snapchat platform, 91% of Snapchatters currently make video podcast app services every day, about 65% of Snapchatters say that their usage habits will prompt relatives and friends to buy the same service applications, and another 55% of Snapchatters believe that their behavior will have a direct impact on the consumption behavior of close friends.
At the same time, 73% of Snapchatters claim to actively purchase video podcast app services through the platform's brand promotion, 54% of Snapchatters said they would repurchase 2 times or more; among the 13-17-year-old Snapchat teenage users, 46% would accumulate pocket money to buy podcasts they were interested in, while at 24~ 43% of the 35-year-old Snapchat user group (a considerable part of which belong to loyal fans who have been registered for many years) pay attention to the brand promotion content on the platform - it can be seen that Snapchat today has formed an excellent centripetal force in the platform registered user group, which is based on the trust in the platform to actively understand the initiative of promoting the brand, which is also one of the core competitiveness of Snapchat as a product promotion platform.
The younger generation that shared "burn after reading" private information through Snapchat ten years ago has now grown up and begun to return their mature spending power to Snapchat, which accompanies them through adolescence; not only that, after ten years, Snapchat, which has always adhered to "walking with the younger generation", is still the first choice for contemporary young people's social networks - this "always young, always tearful" dynamic tone. It is Snapchat's most noteworthy advantage as a brand marketing platform.
Snapchat's road to branding continues.