Snapchat vs. Instagram: Where to Post Your Corporate Story
Many modern companies choose to use social media as a key part of their marketing strategy. As social media preferences change, consumers have started to use more diverse social media platforms, with a variety of different features that enable them to share their lives. One of the most popular features that many social media platforms have introduced is a “story”; a chronological series of pictures and videos from the user’s day. Each post remains visible for 24 hours, then disappears. The most popular social media platforms that offer stories are Instagram and Snapchat.
While the stories function is nearly identical between the two platforms, the user bases of Snapchat and Instagram are very different. A savvy marketer recognizes these differences, and carefully tailors their posts to the platform they choose. For starters, it’s important to know the differences between Snapchat and Instagram stories.
Snapchat
Snapchat was the first social media platform to offer a story function to users. However, Facebook and Instagram quickly imitated the feature. As such, the main differentiator is the mindset of the users. Because of the ephemeral nature of Snapchat messages, users spend less time perfecting their image as it appears on Snapchat than virtually any other platform. Users have much more genuine interactions with each other than they would through, say, Instagram.
As a result, if you plan to share your corporate story on Snapchat, you must be just as genuine as the other users on the platform. This means posting the bad with the good, and the ugly with the polished. Moreover, the personal nature of Snapchat lends itself to use by an individual rather than the company. This can be accomplished by assigning one member of your marketing team to run the corporate Snapchat account, or by letting different employees run the account on a rotation. Either way, it is important for the owner of the account to express their genuine personality through their account.
In comparison to Snapchat, Instagram is the home of polished and photoshop-heavy accounts. Instagram is tailored to users who want to show the best version of themselves to the world. Where Snapchat deals in the day-to-day, Instagram users want to make their posts seem as exciting and interesting as possible. While Instagram users often use the platform to follow their friends, they may also follow their favorite celebrities and Instagram models.
Most companies opt in favor of Instagram stories. Because Instagram etiquette allows for much more polished profiles, marketers feel that they can exercise much more power over their brand and how it is presented to potential customers. Most of the time, Instagram is a much more appropriate tool for corporate marketing than Snapchat. Throughout its life, Snapchat has continually tried to make itself more appealing to companies both through new features and advertisements. However, this has been to little result. The platform is inherently difficult to monetize, and many of the steps taken to lend the platform toward marketing and advertisement have made it less appealing to users.
How to Choose
As we mentioned above, Instagram is much more popular for sharing corporate stories. As a savvy marketer, you know that your brand is perhaps the single most valuable tool your company has for attracting business. As such, it’s completely natural for marketers to tend toward the much more polished and permanent profiles of Instagram rather than the short-lived and raw content that users expect on Snapchat. While the story functions are nearly identical, the expectations of users surrounding the two platforms are radically different.
How to Use Snapchat Right
If you do ultimately decide that your brand is well-suited for Snapchat, there are a few key methods that will help you to be as successful as possible. Firstly, the content needs to be much more about your corporate brand and culture, and much less about the products or services that you offer. Users are highly averse to advertisements, especially when they know that the next funny video of their sister’s cat is just a finger swipe away. Featuring your employees playing ultimate frisbee in the parking lot during lunch hour will yield much better results than posting a picture of your new product.
You must also make an effort to interact with your audience. If you’re a small company, you will likely only have a few followers on your profile, so when they message you, be sure to respond! Snapchat is a highly interactive social media platform, and if you’re not ready to engage and talk with your followers, then it’s probably not the right place for your corporate story.
Finally, be sure to have fun. Personality is key to any successful brand marketing campaign, but on Snapchat this is even more true. When you are posting on your corporate Snapchat account, you are displaying your corporate culture and giving your audience an idea of the personality of the people they are considering working with. Be sure that you represent yourself as someone who they would enjoy interacting with in a personal setting.
Comment below and let us know which social media platform you prefer and why?
Thanks for this wonderful guide. I would love to read a few more stories like this.