Why Snapchat Is The Next Big Thing For Restaurants!

Another great addition for our marketing strategy

Facebook….Whatsapp….LinkedIn….Instagram….Pinterest… Is there something that the social media world is missing? Earlier this year, we looked into what networks you can choose to do social media marketing at your restaurant but have you heard of Snapchat before? Don’t you think you have enough possibilities and reach with your current social media networks? Well, Snapchat offers something… let’s say… different, that is very interesting for businesses out there. So let’s find out why Snapchat marketing is the next big thing for restaurants.

The most distinct difference of Snapchat from other existing Social Media Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram is, that you do not rely on content that will receive the most likes or shares, but instead on views only. Content Creators are asked to fill their networks with a substance that is relevant for the specific user.

Any company or brand must consider implementing this new, powerful social network to their overall marketing strategy to gain the joy of outperforming their competition. Being the cream of the crop! Obviously, your team must distribute the resources accordingly to integrate the target market and to present them great custom content that is different from other social media networks.

What Snapchat actually is and other facts!

Snapchat was created back in September 2011 by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown with the idea, that the users of Snapchat can communicate by using images that were only displayed for a few seconds. Nowadays, Snapchat has progressed to be an application filled with public content, brand networks, private messages as well as live events.

Only 4 years later, Snapchat has 200 million users worldwide with the largest segment at 16 – 24 years-olds. It is a very young audience in which the ladies of this world take the biggest share of 70%.

Young people are always very interesting for companies as they can be influenced more easily in their buying decisions. That sounds mean, doesn’t it?

What is the advantage of adding Snapchat marketing strategy?

Snapchat offers huge advantages compared to other social media networks in term of advertising. In general, the user base of Snapchat receives advertisements 3x more positively than on any other social network.

Usually, it ranges from 17% to 51% in terms of advertisement satisfaction. With the help of Geofilters, you can easily target your market for certain areas or even only for certain branches to give the consumers the feeling that they are something special for your business.

The steps to follow to launch

If you do not use Snapchat marketing yet for your business yet, you might ask yourself the question: How can I actually realize this task of creating a new social media network for my business? How do I get followers? What type of content should be uploaded?

• Gain followers from your other social networks and draw them to your Snapchat account with exclusive content
• Create great content that has seen success such as behind-the scenes content or even competitions. Followers of your Snapchat account can participate in a QuickSnap contest, in which the first 10 persons to respond with a certain snap will receive special treatment, coupons or other prizes.
• Build a relationship on a very personal level with your customers as everything is happening in real time and there is no delay unlike other networks.

Snapchat marketing is fascinating me with its features: Tell me more!

Don’t worry! I am here to help you and I will explain you in a very quick fashion the most important features of Snapchat.

Snap Ads

Generally speaking, advertisements on Snapchat just feel really different. The application makes use of the whole smartphone screen with vertical videos with the option to add interactive elements. Companies can use the Snap Ads to provide the consumer with a 10-second video as an introduction.

The viewers now have the choice, just like with any other snap to swipe left or right to get extra content such as mobile websites, articles or a longer video.

Snapchat has collected a lot of data for this kind of data and came to result that Snap Ads receive a 5x higher click – through rate than any other equivalent social networks.

Geofilters

Once you start playing around with it, you will enjoy the sheer amount of filters that Snapchat has to offer. With the help of Snapchat Geofilters, you can create your own business – related filters that only people can use, who are currently situated in the location, that you have set before. Other companies have used geofilters just for a certain branch, for major events or just for a specific area in a big city.

This kind of ads, when correctly used and designed, allows for great impressions as Snaps are being sent between friends. Snapchat revealed a statistic, that nationally used geofilters typically reach daily 40% to 60% Snapchatters. If you want to know

If you want to know, how to create geofilters for your business, then take a look here. They explain you step by step, how to create your own filters.

Lenses

Additionally to the geofilters, Snapchat offers lenses with many funny effects that guarantees a laughter for many people. I have experienced myself, how easy the times flies by using the many differently offered lenses.

What makes it interesting for companies here is, that you do not only see how many impressions you have received for your advertisements but also the amount of time it was played. Lenses can be very engaging and the animation changes when the user raises its eyebrows or is opening up his mouth.

Just like any other video or pictures, Snapchat gives the user a very easy opportunity to send it to their friends. Snapchat lenses are usually seen for around 20 seconds, in average.

I start to understand what Snapchat is! Can you give me an example now?

Here at Web Courses Bangkok, we have been very lucky to get the opportunity to meet up with Eric Hallin, the general manager of the Rembrandt Hotel & Towers in Bangkok to work together on this article.

We discovered, that the Rembrandt Hotel & Towers in Bangkok is not using Snapchat marketing in their overall strategy yet, so we thought, that this business would be a great example of how to implement Snapchat marketing into your strategy plan.

The idea was to create a story on Snapchat for the users, to convey the fascination of having a great dinner at the Mexicano Restaurante at Rembrandt Hotel. From entering the restaurant to the creation of your dish and cocktails as well as the excitement of the live Mexican music band that it delivers.

Carl Heaton (Managing Director at Web Courses Bangkok) and Eric Hallin (General Manager at Rembrandt Hotel & Towers Bangkok) have known each other for a while now.

Eric has been Carl’s former student at the Web Design for Beginners Course at Web Courses Bangkok and since then, they stayed in touch. This relationship enabled the possibility to contact the Rembrandt Hotel & Towers in Bangkok in the first place to ask for a cooperation.

The idea was not to sell them the idea of using and implementing Snapchat marketing into their business right away but instead being a showcase for other companies, what the possibilities are of doing so.

Lucky us, it was no problem at all and we were able to meet the whole management team of the hotel to discuss our intend.

At the meeting, the managers were agreeing on it to be a great idea. They were so kind to show us around the hotel and the different kinds of restaurants such as an Italian, Indian, Mexican and international. We started to lay out a plan, what content we want to record as a Snapchat video.

Eric Hallin suggested, that we should come back for a second meeting at the Mexicano Restaurante in the evening, as they have a native Mexican music band performing in the restaurant each night (except Mondays).

Fast-forwarding and two weeks later, we meet Eric for a delicious dinner at which we had the opportunity to create a few Snapchat videos.

Those videos can be added to an existing business Snapchat account to engage the consumers and to give a great insight of how lovely an evening can be at the Mexicano Restaurante.

Overall, it was an amazing experience and together with the Rembrandt Hotel, we wanted to give you readers a prime example how to use Snapchat marketing as a tool for big and small companies and especially those, who do not have Snapchat implement into their marketing strategy yet. Here are the examples of what can be done with Snapchat.

Properly implemented, you can help your audience to relive moments (if they visited your restaurant before) or give them the feeling, that they must try the appetizers or dishes, that your restaurant has to offer.

Here we can see Carlos Bravo Torres in full action preparing the food. In case, you are using your own business-related geofilters, you can add your own logo here at the end of the video instead of ‘Bangkok’ to increase your brand awareness.

Nothing can be better than enjoying an original Michelada on the side with your food. This Snapchat video is showing the creation of a drink with additional stickers such as ‘dope’ to deliver a feeling to the follower base, that this is a drink, that they must try.

At the end, the textbox can be used to even further describe your feelings or in that case, describe the product, that is shown.

Get started with Snapchat marketing

You are probably still asking yourself, what the best approach is to get started with a brand new Snapchat account and implementing it into your marketing strategy. Here we have a comprehensive list to help you get started.

Know your audience

Just like with any other social network, you must know your audience. You need to know what they want and who they are. This information will help your business to connect to your audience more easily.

As you know already, Snapchat pictures and video are only displayed for a few seconds and therefore, must create the right content to establish a great impression.

Create unforgettable content

Do not forget, that you have only a few seconds to create an impression. You must have a clear message and get it delivered in a way, so that your audience understands, what you are trying to say. Do not shy away from just being yourself and share your values of the business.

Spontaneity is what makes Snapchat special. Do not waste your time planning ahead the type of content you want to create in a few weeks from now. Just do it right away as soon as you have the idea.

Show your audience exclusive content

At the beginning, your follower base will contain your most loyal followers from other social networks. Why not attach some value for them and provide them with exclusive content?

An Australian milk drink brand was offering the quickest coupon in the world, where the audience had only 1 second to redeem their coupon. This ad was created to the test the decisiveness of the young audience and was a massive success for their launch of the new Snapchat account.

Whenever content is created inside your company, you can provide them with behind – the – scenes content. Are you getting fresh ingredients delivered for your newly created dish? Send a snap to your audience from the delivery truck or a video of the preparation of the dish.

Snapchat marketing – Enjoy exploring a new area of social media

It takes time and passion to create a loyal follower base for your Snapchat account, but once this is established, the impact that your business can create is gigantic.

Everything begins with a single step and if you are still not sure about how to approach your new social media strategies, you can come and see us at our social media marketing workshop.