Snapchat for Business: Best Practices

The premise behind Snapchat is simple: share customizable, short-lived photo and video content with friends from your phone. But when it comes to using the platform for brands, things get complicated. How to use Snapchat for business, and best practices in particular, can be difficult to pin down.

What are the best practices I should follow when using Snapchat for business?

The art of Snapchat lies in linking individual snaps together to create a “story.” I’ll walk you through the 10 best practices for creating snaps and stories when using Snapchat for business.

Top 10 Best Practices: Snapchat Marketing

	Keep your snaps brief and digestible. There’s nothing that deters people more than an unnecessarily long snap. If you’re uncertain about the length run the snap by a couple of other people first or post it on a dummy account while ideating your story.
	Keep stories to about one to two minutes. Unless you are covering a special event this is the right length to keep your audience engaged.
	When posting a new story send one of the updates as a snap to all of your friends. This is a way of letting them know something new has been posted.
	Talk to the camera. Snapchat provides a personal perspective. Make sure to use this perspective for your brand.
	Embrace vertical content. Snapchat is a mobile app. Because people look at their phones vertically 98 percent of the time vertical snap content is the easiest to view.
	Contrast text over image. Try using white text and shading in a darker color behind it. Or use black text and shade in a light color behind it.
	Keep composition in mind. When taking photos and videos use natural light coming in from the side so it doesn’t create a silhouette. Always make sure your shot takes up the whole frame.
	Plan your Snapchat content. Planning improves content quality. Create stories use an editorial calendar and experiment with different weekly segments or serialized content.
	Be responsive. Send direct snaps to influencers and respond to snaps as appropriate.
	Experimentation is key. It can take some time to discover what works for your brand on Snapchat. A little competitive intelligence on other brands can help you ideate your snap content.