NEWSFLASH: Snapchat is not just for teens

I seriously have a love-hate relationship with social media. There are days I love it because I am excited to share something and connect with my audience; then there are days I loathe it—because I feel I HAVE to share something and connect with my audience! I’m a firm believer in choosing only the social media platforms that you can commit do doing consistently and doing well.

Snapchat has been on my radar for over a year now. Actually longer…but I downloaded it a year ago, opened it up, got confused and never opened it again.

Until last month. And now…I’m an official snapchatter.

I was resisting this new social media platform because I simply could NOT wrap my head around one more “thing” to have to do online. I resisted until about a month ago when I was with a group of my senior models doing a photo shoot and I noticed them doing what they usually do: selfies and group-selfies to post to what I THOUGHT was Instagram. Wrong. When I reminded them to use the hashtag #tfsmodel and #terifodeseniors, they all looked at me with blank stares and then one spoke up to say, “oh, we aren’t posting to Instagram, we’re snapchatting.”

First light bulb moment: I realized then and there that what I had been resisting for over a year was a social media platform that was not going away. It was here to stay. And not only that, after doing some research about Snapchat that night I realized it was the largest used social media platform only trailing Facebook and Instagram.

Evan Speigel, creator and CEO of Snapchat,  is a 23 year old genius backed by some pretty major money and just turned down a cash offer from Facebook (thus, Zuckerberg) for 3 Billion dollars. THREE BILLION DOLLARS.

No, snapchat is not going away. Snapchat is growing and improving and causing the BIG companies to take notice and jump on board with their brands to reach their customer base through an inter-active, live-feed media voice using a platform that already has MILLIONS of Millennials.

Second light bulb moment: Snapchat has gone mainstream. Through “Discoveries” we can now view live-stream and interactive images and videos from such brands as Cosmopolitan, CNN, People, ESPN and more. Large companies are jumping on board this trail-blazing new platform and sharing their brand in a relevant and live-feed manner that is interesting and successful.

So. PHOTGRAPHERS. How can WE use snapchat? In many, amazing and relevant ways to our businesses. Think “real-life” and “live-stream” behind-the-scenes on your photo shoots or model creative shoots. Or a string of photos mixed with video clips of your day, as in, “a day in the life of a photographer”. ANYTHING that we show on Instagram can be shown in real-time and in more depth on Snapchat. Not only that, but cross-marketing from Instagram over to Snapchat and vice-verca is an amazing marketing strategy to pull more teens and potential clients into your audience (ie, “be sure to follow our live photo shoot action over on Snapchat today with Brooke on location!”) There are endless possibilites with Snapchat including a sneak peek into your day including the crazy, fun and zany experiences you might have together with “senior takeovers” of your live feed while on a photoshoot.

Why consider Snapchat? The teens today love authenticity and real-life moments. They crave real-time connection and the imperfection of real-life before the editing of a photograph takes place. THAT is what Snapchat is all about.

Oh…and don’t be thwarted off course when your own teenager says “mom, NO parents are on Snapchat!”. That’s what they said about Facebook AND Instagram, remember?

Information about Snapchat here:

THE COMPLETE GUIDE: HOW TO USE SNAPCHAT FOR BEGINNERS

WHY MILLENNIALS USE SNAPCHAT

SNAPCHAT: THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

PS: join me—I’d love you to follow me over on Snapchat — you’ll find me under [ terifode ]. See you there!

snapchat for photographers

Comments

  1. Jenna says:

    Thank you so much for writing this!! I’ve felt SO incredibly clueless and “old” lol as I try to learn this hip, new platform! I’m loving it though and your post helped me take the leap!

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