While Snapchat is lagging behind TikTok and Instagram in the social platform popularity contest, it’s by no means out of the game. In fact, it’s doing well to carve out its own unique personality and purpose in the space between the social media titans.
You might be wondering how to even start marketing and selling on Snapchat – a platform where most content typically lasts just 24 hours before disappearing forever – let alone finding and working with influencers.
The answer is “very effectively” – if you know what to do. If you take one lesson away from this article, it’s that there’s more to Snapchat than you might think. This includes a number of major developments for brands and creators which you might not be aware of, which together make it a hugely underrated option for powerful influencer marketing.
Here’s the complete rundown on how to make a killing with influencers on Snapchat.
Table of Contents
What is Snapchat influencer marketing?
The rules of influencer-led engagement are the same on Snapchat as anywhere else: leverage the personality, authority and audience of a popular individual to promote your brand or products.
There are two ways for users to receive your influencer content. The first is takeovers, where an influencer ‘takes control’ of your official branded account and puts out content for a specific length of time.
The second is endorsements, which will see influencers talking about or demonstrating your brand and products on their own accounts.
While the defining feature of Snapchat is videos or photos that live for 24 hours before disappearing forever, you can also revive or sustain your influencer content with Snapchat Memories. With this, you can save any snaps for resharing later, or even take it off-platform to other channels.
Snapchat influencer marketing can help you build authentic connections with your predominantly Gen Z audience through tutorials, product reviews, humor, going behind the scenes of your brand, filters (called ‘lenses’ on Snapchat) and other augmented reality (AR) features.
You can even repurpose your organic influencer content as Snap ads, providing you with a wellspring of social-first ads that blend seamlessly into the scroll.
Sounding great, but much like the other social platforms you’re already active on? Let’s look at the key reasons why more and more brands are specifically jumping on board with Snapchat for social-led commerce and brand-building:
Why should brands consider Snapchat for influencer marketing?
Snapchat has fallen behind the likes of TikTok and Instagram when it comes to relative popularity, that’s true – its status as “favorite platform” among US teens has fallen from first place, at 36% in 2020, to third place at 22% in 2024.
However, overall traffic data shows a clear and sustained growth in activity since 2019 which shows no sign of stalling, with 424m daily active users in Q1 2024 vs. 414m just one quarter before. 5 billion snaps are now created on the platform every day.
The platform is estimated to generate more than $6.1bn in ad revenue for 2024, with a healthy rise to over $7.2bn by 2026. So, by all accounts, it’s a great place for growth-oriented brands to get involved.
It’s a definitively Gen Z platform, reaching 90% of the population between 13 and 24 worldwide. Considering it also reaches 75% of the 13-34 population worldwide, across more than 25 countries, you’d be hard pressed to find better social marketing audience demographics.
Look at performance data, too, and you’ll discover that Snapchat is an incredibly sharp tool lying unused in your engagement toolbox. Average users open the app more than 30 times a day. The platform’s Sponsored Lenses feature gets an impressive average engagement time of 15-30 seconds, while Snap Ads enjoy generally high completion rates.
Let’s dive into some of the platform’s distinct characteristics that are driving this success, both for Snapchat and the brands and influencers who use it.
What makes Snapchat stand out among other platforms?
The “antidote” to social media
Snapchat is looking to remove itself from the debate of whose social platform is better. Instead, the network is looking to position itself as a more fun, and generally more engaging experience than is available on other platforms.
“People feel exhausted by the social media popularity contest. Fed up with having to look pretty or perfect in every post. Tired of competing for likes and comments. Misled by misinformation. But Snapchat is not social media. It never was. In fact, it was built as an antidote to social media” explained Snap.
Snapchat is looking to peel away from the rest of the pack in the social media space, prioritizing its user experience through fun and engaging experiences over metric-focused posts. For brands looking to jump onto Snap, you must first consider why people are on the platform to begin with, implementing the same tactics that work on Instagram will not effectively engage the Snap audience.
The power of ephemeral content
While it might appear to be a limitation at first glance, the temporary nature of most content on Snapchat is the source of its power.
More than anything, audiences crave authenticity and entertainment from their screens. From its roots as a communication tool, Snapchat has cultivated an informal, experimental, and unpretentious approach that influencers use to fantastic effect. Influencer-led content on Snapchat is typically less ‘polished’, and therefore more relatable – not to mention, often faster and cheaper to produce and push out.
The Snapchat ethos of ‘hyper-engagement’
Snapchat’s strategy is built around a laser focus on engagement, going further than other platforms to develop it into a living, breathing network with interaction at its core.
User behavior on snapchat is geared around user-to-user interactions, much more so than TikTok or Instagram which are more about broadcasting yourself to the world. Reshares of content and valuable information through snaps is the currency of influencer marketing here, allowing you to integrate your brand content into the interactive and entertaining fabric of Snapchat’s chatter.
By tapping into these existing patterns of communication and content distribution, brands can build highly effective campaigns that spread through organic means as much as ad spend.
Diverse and creative ad formats
Snapchat offers an incredible diversity of ad formats and mechanics to marketers and influencers, creating a wealth of opportunities for creative campaigns that might not be possible on other platforms.
There are sponsored lenses (aka filters), along with ads that live on the Discover page or between snaps as users scroll, and even shoppable product category ads. That’s in addition to commercials, which are unskippable 6 second videos, and dynamic ads, which automatically select and display items from your product catalog depending on user’s previous interactions.
Leading in augmented reality (AR) innovations
Snapchat was the pioneer of augmented reality for social media, now commonly known as filters. The platform continues to build on this heritage by continuing to blaze a trail in new AR applications.
They’ve recently opened up access to community-built AR filters, meaning you can work with leading AR-specialized influencers to create your next branded campaign.
That’s in addition to things like On-Demand Geofilters, which are available to users visiting a certain place, store, event or entire country, creating potent connections between real-world behaviors and the social sphere.
Impressive brand and influencer integrations
Snapchat’s been busy building out its influencer and social commerce infrastructure. The first is Public Profiles for creators, making them far more discoverable.
The most exciting is Brand Profiles, which allows you to create a permanent, centralized home for all your content and assets.
That doesn’t just mean content you’ve published. You can also showcase all the sponsored snaps from your influencer collaborators, as well as product storefronts through integrations with Shopify – making it easier than ever to guide users all the way from exposure to purchase without leaving Snapchat.
The top Snapchat influencer marketing tactics brands need to consider
Influencer takeovers
One of the most trending tactics for Snapchat influencer marketing is the social takeover. Whether you’re working with a celebrity to exclusively put out content with their face on for a few days, or giving influencers total creative control over your channel, it’s a great way to create buzz and drive major audience growth for your brand profile on Snapchat.
Giving influencers your branded lens
Another great way to leverage Snapchat’s unique offering is through custom, branded lenses.
CeraVe continue to impress with their smart influencer activity across almost every type of media, and Snapchat is no exception. They created a fun branded lens for their face moisturizer product range, providing the perfect backdrop a range of influencers to talk about the products and their experiences with them.
Endorsements with micro influencers
Product endorsements are the bread and butter of influencer marketing, but Snapchat is a particular goldmine for micro influencers. Despite their small audiences, these individuals can drive impressive engagement metrics at excellent value.
With the help of someone like The Goat Agency, you can engage a swathe of micro influencers across various audience types and verticals, creating conversation and interaction at a grassroots level for maximum authenticity and great ROI.
Snap Star Collab Studio
The Goat Agency is a member of the platform’s new Snap Star Collab Studio, launched in 2023, which makes it easy to source leading Snapchat creators for your next high-impact campaign.
As just one of four partner agencies in the UK who have been selected to partner with Snapchat, we offer brands the best way to:
Source talent
Identifying Snap Stars for brand campaigns based on specific goals
Produce content
Managing production of compelling content for Sponsored Stories and Snap Ads
Manage and admin
Managing proposals, contracts, payments and deliverables with Snap Stars
Amplify campaigns
Boosting branded Creator-first content across Snapchat with paid media
“This partnership symbolizes our shared vision of creating compelling, authentic content that deeply resonates with audiences,” says Goat COO Dafydd Woodward.
“By harnessing our combined expertise and ongoing collaboration, we’re well-equipped to deliver exceptional results for our clients and unlock the full potential of Snapchat’s vibrant creator ecosystem.”
Tips for brands looking to work with influencers on Snapchat
Lean into Snapchat’s unique mechanics
If you aren’t going to make the most of the platform’s strengths, you’re missing out on major gains. Snapchat stories create urgency and exclusivity due to their temporary nature, making them perfect for behind the scenes or ‘sneak peek’ type content.
Meanwhile, Geofilters create interactive opportunities based on real-world user activity – ideal for driving interest in things like brick-and-mortar stores, customer experiences, or events.
Engagement is number one
Don’t get distracted by follower counts. When searching for the ideal influencer for your Snapchat campaign, engagement levels are the true indication of an influencer’s impact – indicating the benefits they’ll be able to bring to your branded content.
Find creative influencers, build relationships with them
Consistent, quality influencer content is key to success on Snapchat, especially given the often-fleeting nature of content there. Despite the short shelf life of a snap story, you can revive content in fun and creative ways through flashbacks and memories.
By nurturing rich, recurring relationships with influencers who resonate with your brand and understand Snapchat trends, you can build an incredible brand presence and support all sorts of business activities, from leaking new product details to building real buzz around events.
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Still feeling a little lost in the world of snaps, stories, memories and takeovers? Want to discover the best Snapchat influencers out there but aren’t sure where to start? The Goat Agency is here to help.
