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Snapchat has emerged as an exciting social media platform with a large audience of close to 160 million. It offers marketers a unique way to promote their products unlike other social media platforms. Snapchat, offers an opportunity to help you increase your brand’s community engagement, loyalty, and brand visibility.

Why Snapchat?

With over 400 million snaps in a day and 100 million plus active users, Snapchat is one of the fastest growing social media platforms. With the demographic range lying between 18-34 years, Snapchat provides an excellent platform for marketers to connect with the young audience. Marketers are using the Snapchat ‘Story’ feature to create stories which engage and excite audiences. Snapchat stories get close to 1 billion views in a day and Snapchat provides native tools and features such as add filters, geofilters, text, emojis, music and more to make it more fun and engaging.

Here are a few innovative ways in which you can use Snapchat for your business:

1. Give a Sneak Peek Tease

Create a buzz among your audience by giving them a sneak peek. Generate suspense before the launch by creating a Snapchat story and revealing few details of the product. The stories last only 24 hours and hence create the right kind of suspense that will keep the audience hooked onto your profile to know more.

2. Share behind the curtain scenes.

Share behind-the-scene content and show off your corporate culture. Give your audience a look into corporate parties and office staff outings. Give your audience a glimpse into how you manufacture their favorite product. Handing over the Snapchat account to trusted employees from various departments of the company will add variation to the content. In sharing such stories, you engage the audience of your brand where they see the whole process from ideation to creation.

3. Partner with Influencers

Like all other social media platforms, Snapchat also has its share of influencers who can increase the views and reach of the brand. By associating with such influencers marketers can reach a wider audience and spread awareness to a targeted demographic which is otherwise difficult through traditional channels.

4. Keep it Young

Since majority of the audience on Snapchat are fairly young, a company has to keep its content colorful and entertaining. The snap story should be free from the regular corporate stuffiness. The trick is to keep it fun yet professional.

5. Promotional Campaign or Contests:

Your audience loves giveaways and contests. Contests are engaging and create an impact in the social media sphere. You can offer promo codes and giveaways to people who snap with your product or share something related to your product or service.

Snapchat platform can make a real impact among your followers and boost your brand’s point with real time marketing.

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In this digital age, businesses that fail to operate online risk going offline for good.

The growing popularity of smartphones, tablets and digital media provides opportunities for a company not only to use fragmented new-age marketing effectively to promote existing products, but also to come up with innovative business models where product demo, customer acquisition and order fulfillment can take place online.

Innovative business models might include the following:

Online Marketplaces—Several e-commerce companies have created global online marketplaces for selling books, consumer goods and other products. In such business models, customer acquisition is usually initiated through the company’s website. The company coordinates with its multiple suppliers to source products; samples, demos and product reviews are provided on the website; customers make their purchases online; and items are shipped directly to customers.

Here is an example of Online Marketplaces:

• Book publishing and retail businesses, which historically gained much success using traditional business models, have been significantly affected by the advent of online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Alibaba and Flipkart.

Online Services—Online services have significantly impacted many traditional product and service industries by transforming existing business models and creating new ways to conduct business.

Here are examples of Online Services:

• Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and online maps have made physical maps redundant.
• Online learning tools have gained popularity and, at times, can complement or even replace physical classroom training.

Online Networking—The Internet has made the world a smaller place. People can now access their networks at all times. These changes have significantly impacted the way in which people communicate with each other and, in turn, have created new possibilities for innovative business models.

Here is an example of Online Networking:

• Social media channels such as LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook and Google+ have significantly changed the way in which people communicate with each other.

Business Models Using Smartphones and Tablets—Smartphones and tablets are Internet-enabled devices that allow people to have an ongoing connection to the Internet. Since individuals usually carry their smartphones and tablets with them, mobile apps are becoming increasingly popular. Innovative business models based on the use of mobile devices can disrupt several existing business models—more so in industries that rely on other forms of communications and networking. 

Here are examples of Business Models Using Smartphones and Tablets:

• Social media channels such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn provide mobile apps that enable users to easily share photos and updates or chat with friends.
• Some mobile apps allow users to locate nearby restaurants, read reviews and also post reviews about their experiences.

In terms of business, the popularity of the Internet has fueled the “adapt or die” landscape more than ever. Business models that integrate online marketplaces, online services and online networking, and that allow for compatibility with smartphones and tablets, offer businesses excellent opportunities for sustained success.