The keys to Snapchat's success have been....

As my social media marketing topic comes to an end, I have thoroughly enjoyed making this blog and sharing it to people all over the world to educate/inform them about the emerging social media trend that is Snapchat! Over my twenty posts I have covered many aspects of Snapchat that have differentiated themselves in the social media market as the executives of Snapchat Pty Ltd are strategically positioning the company in a beneficial position for a competitive advantage in the years to come.

Snapchats timeline of updates and enhances to the social media app.

The additions of the 'LIVE' events in the story section and the 'Discover' feature have boosted the companies trajectory and future outlook as it has established a base for high revenue receivables. Not only does higher revenue equate to increase worth for the company, which currently sits at about $15billion, it also allows Snapchat to have more capital to enable 'Research & Development' activities that will hopefully drive the app towards more success.

Over recent months Snapchat have forged partnerships with a variety of companies in the aim of exposing what companies have to advertise with Snapchat's user database, which currently sits at 200 million active users.
Examples of these include:

• The Activision alliance, which saw snapchat QR code within online games of Call of Duty where players could 'snap' the code and it would add the new call of duty trailer.
• The Discover feature partners of; News.com.au, CNN, MTV, Daily Mail, Cosmopolitan, Food Network, National Geographic, People, Vice, Fox Sports, and Fusion.
• NBA, NHL, MLB, and NCAA have all featured on the Snapchat Live events section; furthermore Major League Baseball has recently formed a deal with Snapchat to feature weekly updates of the entire season in the Live section.
• New series and movie trailer debuts released on the app have already been seen by 'Literally Can't Even', and 'Snapperhero', with many more to come such as; Sofia Vergara's 'Vergaraland' and Robin Williams' 'Absolutely Nothing'.

As the company moves forward toward the future, it will be interesting to see where the concept of making their own content from journalism goes and how successful it will be after the recent appointments of Peter Hamby and Rob Saliterman.

New technological improvements are consistently upgrading the app with new updates, further differentiating the product. Furthermore, just this past week Snapchat an update that enables the user to send snaps of the Discover advertisements to friends.

Thank you for reading my posts from the last few months, and I hope you have found them helpful and educational.

Robin Williams' last film to debut its trailer on Snapchat

'Absolutely Nothing' is set to release its trailer on the Discover feature of Snapchat for one day only on the MTV channel. The comedy/Sci-fi stars the late Robin Williams, Simon Pegg (Hot Fuzz), and Kate Beckinsale (Underworld). The trailer's appearance has been made possible from a partnership between MTV (which operates the Snapchat channel) and the movie studio's of Lionsgate and Viacom. A spokes person from Viacom said that they are always looking for innovative ways to engage with MTV and in this way, the company can take the opportunity to provide fans with content that will excite them. Also the app allows people to view world exclusives at the convenience of opening up the Snapchat on their devices.

Williams plays the role of Dennis, the talking dog in the movie. Since 1977, Williams has been entertaining audiences all across the globe with his filmography totalling 102 credits for his acting. The Aladdin movies, Mrs. Doubtfire, Jumanji, Flubber, Goodwill Hunting, and the Night at the Museum movies, are only to name a few of the box office successes that Robin Williams has starred in. He will be a sorely missed presence in feature films in the coming years as he was such an amazing talent and no doubt inspired many people in becoming actors after seeing his films.

It's prom time in the US

It's that time of year again for seniors of high school, where they dress up and celebrate their years at high school. The Prom was displayed on Snapchat feeds all across the globe; featuring numerous cities of the United States in the prom night of thousands of teenagers. 

From the west of Los Angeles, CA....

...to the east of Fairless, PA.....

...and the central of the nation in Chicago, IL. 

I remember my prom quite well and I'm sure there were many joyous memories made last night that people will carry for many years. 

Hope it was a happy and safe prom for all, good luck for the graduation 

Live Stream of Preakness

The 140th Preakness Stakes were held at Pimlico Race Course (Baltimore) yesterday, but it wasn't only the attendees who could experience the events of the day. Every user around world could watch the six minute long story on Snapchats live feed to expose the event and make the audience feel like they are a part of the action. As a fellow audience member on the app, I was quite entertained by the story with the fun that was had by young and old. The musical acts on the main stage sounded awesome and I felt like I wanted to be there. 

The coverage went throughout the entire day and even showed the main race, which was won by American Pharoah. 

MLB marketing partnership with Snapchat!

The USA's Major League Baseball is a highly popular competition that is now utilising the popular app of Snapchat to expose the MLB to a greater audience through the Snapchat users throughout the world. Each of the NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA, and also the MLB have all featured on snapchat before in finals series, but the new partnership with MLB sees a first in a regular weekly coverage throughout the whole duration of the season.

This is a major win/accomplishment for Snapchat Pty Ltd, as live sports, especially sports, is a fast growing markets in the digital world. The partnership's purpose is to establish Snapchat within the niche market of live-streaming sports events in a convenient and effective fashion. There is a huge potential for an increase of traffic through the app, which could attract more advertisement opportunities to increase revenue. The MLB is highly popular with the older generation and as 71 percent of users of Snapchat are between the ages of 18-34, it enables the MLB to connect with their targeted audience of the younger generation to acquire more followers. If the marketing strategy is successful, the MLB will be engaging the younger demographic and growing the fan base for many decades to come. 

Lastly, it is promising to see organisations are being innovative in utilising the technology developments that society has to offer in the aim to expand the reach and potential customer base. Therefore, as technology and trends change, organisations must adapt to give the organisation the best change of survival in this highly competitive world.

This following Article link covers aspects such as; why and how MLB is using Snapchat...

http://mashable.com/2014/04/08/major-league-baseball-snapchat/

Modern Family's Sofia Vergara to get her own series on Snapchat?!?!

The television series of Modern Family has been infiltrating our televisions and laptops since 2009 and we have all come to know Sofia Vergara as she plays Gloria in the successful series. TV's highest paid actress is venturing out into a new production and will be the subject of a short-film, six-episode series. 

It has recently been announced that Sofia's latest series will launch on... you guessed it... Snapchat!

The series has been called 'Vergaraland' and is based on Sofia's career through the view of her son Manolo, who is 22 years of age. As per the usual Snapchat story exposure time, the debut of the series will be exposed to Snapchat users for a duration of 24 hours. Manolo formed a business deal with Fusion and Latin World Entertainment, which Sofia cofounded, to create this series. Fusion currently posts their news on the Discover feature of Snapchat, covering news story's in a minute-long video snaps.

Sofia Vergara's series won't be the first original series to premier on Snapchat. Steven Spielberg's daughter Sasha Spielberg, along with Emily Goldwyn, launched Literally Can't Even in January. Furthermore, a superhero Snapchat series called SnapperHero by AT&T has been written and could see many organisations follow in the footsteps of Sasha Spielberg and Emily Goldwyn.

Vergaraland will be aired in summer in the USA, which is winter in Australia. 

Exact dates are yet to be released.

New cost per view on ads in Snapchat

Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snapchat, has settled with marketers on the pricing of advertisements in the discover feature of the app. Previously in January, companies were paying approximately ten cents per view for their content on the app.

Now the new figures are twenty percent of that original cost, at a mere two cents per view. Reasoning behind this reveal that as the feature isn't 'new' anymore and has experienced a decrease in views per day, companies aren't willing to pay the rates they were previously paying.

Social media journalism for Snapchat

In a recent post I placed an emphasis on possible directions Snapchat could invest into. Recently, the company has employed its first head of news, Peter Hamby; in the aspiration that Snapchat can evolve into social media journalism. At the Snapchat headquarters, they understand that social media is a growing way that people are getting their news, and strong growth is expected to continue as it is quick and convenient. Hamby is excited about his new role as he states,"Snapchat is one of the most exciting young companies in the world.....they have a big and growing audience, and we've seen Discover is a huge success". He has continued his role at the news channel of CNN and hopefully will be beneficial for both parties.



Snapchat and CNN hold an existing business relationship as CNN broadcasts its' news on the discover feature of the app. All major social media platforms are trying to figure out how news fits into their network to expose their content to a wider variety of people throughout the world, and this is why Snapchat have strategically employed Peter Hamby.

Click here for CNN's promotion on Snapchat:
http://edition.cnn.com/videos/us/2015/01/27/orig-cnn-joins-snapchat-npr.cnn

In the article, '5 reasons Journalism educators need to be on Snapchat', Aaron Manfull expresses the necessity of Journalists to be a part of Snapchat. he explains that there is a large audience, and journalists must go to where the audience is. Also, we must keep up with the ever-changing digital landscape.
For the full article, *click here*.
The graph below reveals the current exposure and reach that the app has in the social media market.

Can Snapchat really make journalism work on its platform??

How often are you engaged in Snapchat?

It is astonishing to here that this app has 150 millions active users and is worth $15 billion after just four years. What is also interesting is the amount of time these users spend on Snapchat sharing pictures or videos with their friends.

What category do you fall under?

Personally, I'm between two to five snaps per day, but it all depends on how interesting my day is. 

Things you may not know about snapchat

Firstly I'm liking the new trend and frequently use the app to communicate with friends. 

Here are some interesting facts that I found, however they are from 2014:

The only main differences from 2014 to the present date are;

-there are now just over a billion snaps made per day by users, which is a 250% increase from 12 months ago.

-From the previous 60 million, the number of active users has reached 150 million worldwide. 

What's Next for Snapchat?!

In September 2011, three Stanford University students had just released one of the most popular social media apps in history after six months of planning and designing. Bobby Murphy, Evan Spiegel and Reggie Brown all worked on the application as a project for one of Spiegel's classes, where his classmates balked at the idea of sending photos and videos to people for a specific amount of time and then being erased from existence. The creator experienced immediate success with the public and within a year, twenty-million 'snaps' were being sent each day even though Snapchat was only expose to iOS users. In November 2012, Snapchat was introduced to Android and had gained full exposure over the operating systems. Over the next two years the app rapid growth as the brand became popular all around the globe where in August of 2014 it was valued at $10 billion. Acknowledging the fact that Snapchat is a free service, the company needed to start building their revenue stream, which saw the first paid advertisement open up on users' devices. The advertisement aired in October 2014 in the form of a 20 second movie trailer for the horror film Ouija. While we aren't fond of the pop-up or sidebar advertisements on the world wide web, Snapchat Inc. explained their reasons about the advertisements with; "We want to see if we can deliver an experience that's fun and informative, the way ads used to be, before they got creepy and targeted."

Readers, you may remember my post on the 'Discover' feature of Snapchat. This feature was introduced in January of 2015 and has since been generating revenue for the company from the ad partners of well known organisations; News.com, CNN, MTV, Daily Mail, Cosmopolitan, Food Network, National Geographic, People, Vice, Fox Sports, and Fusion. The material on the channels within the feature are viewed around one million times per day and with an estimated ten to fifteen cents per view, this is Snapchats first major, for-profit, interface feature.

Snapchat Inc. has a current estimated value at $15 billion and with the newly founded revenue generating feature and the current popularity of over 100 million active users sending over one billion photos or videos per day, What's next for this trending brand or has it reached its full potential?

Time will tell as to whether they will follow down the path of making their own content rather than having the content entirely user produced. Similarly, Youtube and Tumblr have recognised the potential behind creating their own content and transitioning into a media company as the success of Netflix and Amazon have shown that it can be done, and to also move forward in gaining competitive advantage over other competitors.

Companies and Nations Capitalize on Snapchat trend

In his article 'how 12 brands used Snapchat', Jeff Beer explains how companies are running social media marketing campaigns on the platform of Snapchat. Jeff includes the statistics behind the market share of social media and that Snapchat holds a quite substantial piece of that pie; 50% penetration to be exact in the 18-24 year old category. The following link contains Jeff's article:
http://www.fastcocreate.com/3033793/how-12-brands-used-snapchat

Lebron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers campaigning for Mcdonald's.

In addition, more organisations have recently entered into Snapchat campaigns since Jeff Beer's article has been published.
Some recent organisations using Snapchat include:
-Marriott Hotels' was a first for any Hotel brand to use the app for marketing campaigns;
-Lacoste clothing brand;
-Call of Duty video game by Activision;
-UNICEF humanitarian and developmental assistance organisation for children and mothers in developing countries.

The company campaigns on Snapchat are very innovative and an effective method of mass marketing by utilizing the popular app. Furthermore, nations are now tapping into the Live feed of the Snapchat app to promote themselves with stories of tourist attractions and anything that will appeal to the world. Today's live feed features Dublin, Ireland; containing all the wonderful city has to offer.

If you are a Snapchat user and have seen these live stream updates from nations around the world, does it increase your desire to travel there?

NBA live stream

Attention Snapchat users, you can find your NBA highlights and results from Snapchats live feed. 

The story features all the opening games of the NBA finals series and is increasing the exposure of the sport through mass marketing. 

Check it out if you haven't already. 

The Socceroos World Cup qualifying

The road to the World Cup 2018 in Russia has been announced. 

The Socceroos' group has been drawn with Kyrgkstan first on Ange Postecoglou's schedule. Also in the Asian World Cup Group B are Bangladesh, Jordan and Taijkstan. 

Ange seemed to be pleased with the draw for the qualifiers as the highest FIFA ranking opponent in the group is at 102, which is Jordan. 

Through the group stage there could be a chance that the youngsters of the Socceroos squad could gain some caps under their belt to assist in increasing the squads depth. 

This news story was brought to you by Fox Sports on the discover section of Snapchat. The utilisation of the discover section of Snapchat has increased the exposure for the participating brands. Fox Sports currently has easy to access stories that have short video clips of the story, all for the convenience of the Snapchat users. 

The New Call Of Duty Teaser On Snapchat

2015 see's a new edition to the 'Call Of Duty' video game brand.

Developers of the game, Activision, have placed a teaser for the highly anticipated new development on an unlikely platform, Snapchat.

A sneaky Snapchat ghost has been spotted by players in multiplayer mode of Black Ops 2 on the new update. This is creating hype and players can actually scan the emblem on their televisions by using the Snapchat app on mobile devices. The emblem's code automatically adds the Call Of Duty Snapchat account so users can keep updated with Activision's developments on their new edition of the video game.

The approach of Activision to use Snapchat as the social media platform to market their up-and-coming product is innovative and effective. The app is widely used around the world as I've previously discussed in my previous post of 'Live Stream Infiltration'.

Happy Easter

This weekend around the world, Snapchat is consumed by the festivities that occur on this weekend. 

The live feed of Snapchat presents lengthy stories of Easter within Los Angeles, New York City and St. Lucia. 

This is an effective way to market these cities through the avenue of social media. 

Well done and it's a good promotion as it makes me want to venture to that part of the world. 

Making snapchat unstoppable

In her article 'the 'very clever' strategy that's making snapchat unstoppable', Meabh Quoirin, a LinkedIn influencer, explains three major benefits to Snapchat that is making the app a key worldwide trend.

Snapchat utilises the want of anonymity of the user for a discreet way of communicating. At the same time, it also connects the user to world news with the 'discover' and 'live' sections of the app.

To see the full article and watch the connecting video clips, click the hyperlink:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/very-clever-strategy-thats-making-snapchat-meabh-quoirin

The new 'discover' update

Update v9.4.0 brought the discover extension to Snapchat users. 11 unique organisations have their exclusive avenue of reaching a vast amount of people to market their brand and products they offer throughout the world. 

This marketing strategy is very innovative and will keep Snapchat users updated informed on news, entertainment, fashion, food and sport. 

Live stream infiltration

Instead of the classic "find us on facebook at..." saying from businesses, some innovative businesses are now utilising marketing techniques within the avenue of Snapchat.

The Snapchat story feed has been infiltrated with live updates of events or sporting games like the superbowl, American College sports or the English Premier League to name a few.

Snapchat has exploded since May 2012, from 2 million snaps a day, to a current rate of over 1 billion snap views per day. 

So as a business looking for ways to captialise on extra exposure within social media, to reach the population of Snapchat users throughout the world, mass market your product on Snapchat!

Welcome to my blog

Hey guys and gals,

First of all, welcome to my blog :)

I'll be discussing the developing social media marketing trend of Snapchat in this tread and how they have revolutionised the way in which people interact with each other in the present day.