Tips for Successful Influencer Marketing

Traditional marketing is losing its steam with every passing day in this digital age of changing technology. It is important to find new and effective ways for effectively promoting the products in your niche market. By using Influencer Marketing, your brand can develop the ability to connect with the intended target audience, which ultimately could become strong brand advocates and loyal customers.

The modern customer does not trust a brand easily. For them, opinions of experts and people known to them play a significant role and they seek validation for a product beforehand. Influencer marketing is something which has become quite important for businesses as they need loyal customers to leverage their product or service. 

Therefore, need of the hour is to work with influencers so that your target audience trusts your brand and that will increase your credibility. Here are some tips which can help you in creating brand awareness for your business through applying the highly effective strategy of influencer marketing:

Authenticity and Consistency

It is critical to know your long term and short term goals as well. If you choose your goals and objectives wisely, it will help you in selecting the right influencers and for reaching out to them with the right kind of content for the campaign. As a marketer, you need to narrate your story to your audience and reach the intended target consumers. Influencers are the people who will actually communicate your brand value to the audience. Co-create highly relevant content along with the influencers with minimal branding and accurate targeting which captures the sentiment of the existing market.

In order to attract the right audience to your brand, your influencers need to be absolutely authentic to convey their message across the target audience for creating an emotional connection. Think of various creative ways so that your influencer can create a long lasting impact. Don’t miss out defining a clear cut long term vision and the way you would want to measure success.

Selecting the Right Influencer

Selecting the right influencers are something which needs to be given due attention and it needs to be mastered. Select people who are experts and veterans in their niche should have a trustworthy reputation, are likable and are quite popular on social media with a large fan following. Such people can also include famous bloggers, industry experts and media journalists. Campaign goals and guidelines should be the main factors responsible for choosing the right influencers. It is also quite important that they should be genuinely interested in your products/services so that they can become brand advocates and can contribute immensely to your brand building.

Create Reciprocity with your Influencers

While developing an influencer marketing strategy, it is always a great idea to clarify the terms of your working agreement so that there is not an iota of doubt on either side. Setting up the expectations on both sides should be the top most priority for making this entire campaign a grand success. Also, as someone who is using influencers for brand building, you need to help reciprocate in return by adding value for them which resonates with their followers. In the event of mutual benefits created as a result of the campaigns, even monetary compensations take a back seat.  

Role of Micro-Influencers

The role of micro-influencers in your marketing campaign is quite a significant one. A core part of an effective influencer marketing strategy is the role of micro-influencers. In fact, it is for you to decide that you would prefer to go for a hugely influential expert within your niche who charges a whopping sum of money or if you would want to use a dozen of micro-influencers with smaller followings for the same price. Practically speaking, you can fall back to the micro-influencers.

You will realize that it surely makes sense to go for the latter as a good fit for your campaign. They do have quite an engaged and loyal following who are genuinely interested in the content they are generating. You can make use of various tools which can identify all the available micro influencers within the industry. It is undoubtedly more practical to have a number of micro-influencers promote your brand rather than being done by merely an influential celebrity.

Measuring and Analyzing Campaigns

You must know whether the influencer campaigns are working or not. Remember that it is not merely the number of likes or the number of followers which validates your success. Your success can be measured logically by using Google Analytics and analyzing various metrics associated with the brand engagement you are looking for.

Since your influencers are proactively running the campaign, taking a look at the referral traffic and social media platform stats will reveal the extent of how successful your campaigns have been till date. You should be constantly on the lookout for analyzing whether all the efforts are showing positive results or not in the form of an increase in leads/sales, conversions etc. or an astounding increase in the number of followers on social media.

Significance of Mentoring in Entrepreneurship

Being an entrepreneur is challenging and at times quite intimidating too. It is not an easy journey. You sure will have a lot on your plate to handle. The fact is that it is quite exciting to go alone about it and become your own boss without anyone’s interference. However, the reality is that in spite of having a great idea and noble intentions to make it big someday, you may not know exactly how to go about it. You likely might experience huge obstacles now and then.

A mentor comes to your rescue in such situations. A mentor is an experienced person who utilizes his own knowledge/resources to hand- hold your startup and helps you during critical decision-making situations. The value of the impact of a mentor should never be underestimated. Here are some important reasons which make the presence of mentors quite valuable:

Expert advice

Usually, mentors are experienced people who have been through the journey and have ventured into whatever obstacles you are experiencing at present. The expert insight that they can provide for your business is quite invaluable for the success of your business. Your mentor surely has much more experience as well as knowledge. Utilizing this wisely is important for you as you don’t need to actually live out all those experiences and problems in order to gain the practical wisdom is required for making the startup a dream venture.

Networking

Besides having a ton of experience within their specialized niche, mentors also do have a vast network of industry connections. This can be extremely useful for your business as it will help you in making networking contacts with more people within your target market, who could be your potential prospects, customers and even your team members.

In fact, your mentor can introduce you to other known people in a much more familiar way instead of the traditional way of meeting people during networking events and then try to tie up with them. Your mentor, in fact, can lobby for you to get that first critical meeting across with senior executives, who are ready to invest in your companies and which will help you get past those initial barriers, thus opening many doors of opportunities for you.

Offer Encouragement

An entrepreneur’s on-going journey requires a ton of patience and perseverance. Mentors offer encouragement and keep us going ahead in our path. Losing hope during tough times is inevitable. However, mentors enable us to see the hope within ourselves. They are with you, no matter what, during turbulent phases and offer moral support and encouragement. This makes you realize that giving up on your business is the last thing you would want to do as an owner. Mentors also give you the hope and support that you could do whatever and whenever is asked of you in any situation.

Instill Discipline

Being disciplined is one of the essential ingredients of being successful in your venture. Are you an entrepreneur with unlimited willpower? Willpower is an offshoot of discipline. In fact, following a self-disciplined lifestyle and approach is critical for self-development. Mentors also are self-disciplined people who create the necessary boundaries that otherwise you might fall short of setting up for yourself. Good and regular habits define one’s routine. Following your mentor’s disciplined principles will enable you to sharpen your focus on self-priorities and result in more productivity for your business.

Mentors are just like sounding boards

Having a mentor increases your ability to utilize your mentors as a sounding board in evaluating your ideas and thoughts regarding important business decisions. There could be many ideas which you wish to implement in your business. However, you ultimately may find yourself unnecessarily wasting endless hours in trying out some concepts which are sure to get failed as they were already tried by your mentors at some point of time in the past.

Discussing your ideas well before implementing them can help you immensely for gaining a different perspective towards any type of new ideas floating in your mind for the business. Talking out all these with your mentor will surely help you in figuring out the ones which have a lot of potential and the ones which should be applied. On the other hand, you also get the knowledge required to figure out which ones are those which you are better without. They put an end to any conflicts arising within you and help in straightening out all those kinks during the entrepreneurial journey.

  

Bringing out your Strengths

Every person has a set of well-defined qualities which are ultimately their strengths. It is quite possible that unknowingly you might have downplayed many of your core strengths which otherwise could make a huge difference to your company. Any individual’s core strengths are a combination of skills, knowledge and experience.

Your greatest room for growth lies in utilizing all those strengths in the right way for growing the business. A mentor is someone who can bring out those core strengths in a positive way which you might not necessarily have seen in yourself. By doing this, you will be able to cultivate and utilize your strengths which might be preventing you to achieve the glorious success you deserve. 

    

   

      Essential Steps for bridging the gap between Millennials & Baby Boomers

In this technology enriched world, we are witnessing a sharp increase of generational gaps in the workplace between baby boomers and millennials. Statistics reveal that by the year 2020, around 45 percent of the working force will consist of millennials and about 25 percent will be baby boomers. That being said, the main reason is attributed to a delayed retirement age of the Baby boomers from their jobs.

As a result of this, people of different generations are collaborating in their organizations which call for a blending of these two generations and all those in between. The results can be a bit hard resulting in some bumps along the road as there is a large difference in their experience, lifestyle and values. If the top management does not pay attention for creating an amicable work environment, it can lead to loss in productivity and profits. 

Here are some ways both millennials and baby boomers can bridge their gap:

Finding Common ground while Communicating

As expected, the tendency of communication is different for both of these generations. Millennials were born in a technology age and are habitual of communicating through social media and online text messaging. However, baby boomers had an opportunity to learn technology later in their lives, as time progressed and the world became more advanced in technology techniques.

So how can we have a common ground when every generation has their own preferences? The answer is simple. There is a need to include a blend of various communication techniques which make use of latest technology and at the same time does not completely abandon previous communication preferences. Therefore, there is a need to create a balance which fuses various communication methods for everyone to be comfortable with.

Both should start off on the same Page

Despite the differences in the styles of both these generations, there is a need to be on a common ground for the betterment of the company. Proper communication is the solution to all the issues. In case of a conflict, keeping them under wraps and not talking it out worsens the situation. The organization goals are above everything else and personal egos should not stand in the way of work productivity.

Practicality

You might plan the same projects for both of them. However, the way of working on them could be different for each, though the results might be the same. At times, the difference in style of working can cause a ton of friction and misunderstanding within the team members. Baby boomers may prefer long, relentless hours in the office itself while millennials probably would like to work on their portable devices for finishing those deadlines. You should formulate goals which are practical enough for both the groups to be met precisely.

Reverse Monitoring

Skills can be traded off, such as millennial’s expertise in social media or other latest technologies and baby boomer’s seasoned experiences regarding working knowledge of a specific industry. Each generation can learn something from the other. By applying for various mentorship programs, millennials can learn ropes of the trade, make the best use of the baby boomers experiences on the job and innovate ways of developing professional communication/presentation skills.

Over Expectations

There is a tendency of seniors to have high expectations from the juniors. They are quite particular about the way they want to get things done as per their directions. However, in order to maintain a pleasant and amicable working environment, there is a dire need to have expectations within limits for more productivity in the workplace. At the same time, the millennials also need to understand that older generations have much more experience compared to them and a deep learning could be of great benefit to them. Eventually, both generations should mutually respect each other and define their rules clearly.

One Plan will not work for everyone

Creating a management plan which fits every one of your team members is a misnomer. Since your team consists of intergenerational members, it is quite natural that if the plan is over friendly for either the millennial or baby boomers, it can prove to be catastrophic and lead to a decrease in the productivity. It even might lead to ego clashes within the workplace. In such type of situations, customized management plans especially tailor made for each of them will be the best solution so that it works for both the generations. 

The Harsh Realities of being an Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurship completely changes one’s personal as well as professional life. You get to create your own pathway to being highly successful. However, there is little doubt in the fact that being an entrepreneur is not an easy task. Though it is a great feeling to be your own boss, at the same time it is a challenging task which demands a lot from you. Here are few disadvantages you will likely face being an entrepreneur.

You will have a lot of Stress & Responsibilities

As an employee, you can be assured of getting a fixed pay cheque at the end of the month. However, as an entrepreneur, you need to struggle for making your share of profit in the company. There is a lot of financial responsibility and a burden which comes along with it. The uncertainty surrounding all this can be quite overwhelming for many people. At the end of the story, you need to pay your bills.

Especially in the first few years of starting off, it is well understood that it’s going to be a rough road out there in this entrepreneurial journey. Initially, you will not make much money. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be rich someday. However, if you are passionate about what you are doing, then making a lot of money takes a back burner for achieving the mission which you wanted to accomplish in the very first place.

Relentless Hours of Work

One of the major drawbacks of being an entrepreneur are the long, strenuous and relentless hours of work you have to put in for building your business. Unlike an employee, there are no fixed or definite hours expected out of you. Instead, it’s your company and it’s you, who has made all efforts, devoted time and investment to make your business successful. You will have to burn the midnight oil for carrying out critical tasks and to keep moving the startup vehicle which you are driving.

Attitude of Friends & Family

Unless you prove yourself to be a highly successful entrepreneur, it is likely that even close friends and at times family members also don’t understand your situation. They don’t perceive what you go through and the umpteen challenges which come your way in your journey. Entrepreneurs have to really struggle initially to keep their foothold while building their business from zero.

People become skeptical and criticize you from the sidelines during your struggling days. The bottom line is that you have to keep your spirits soaring high despite facing the attitude of people around you, who don’t think that you can make it big someday. Don’t let their opinions fill your mind with doubt as self-doubt can be catastrophic.

You Need to be a Jack of all Trades Initially

One of the big disadvantages of running a company is that while starting out, you will be responsible for conducting the operations in your company. In fact, you will have to wear multiple hats before you employ experienced and talented people who demand a fat pay cheque. Being a multitasker and being responsible for a variety of activities can also take a toll on your elevated stress levels. Understanding the business from all perspectives will be quite important in the long run. Later on, when things start picking up, the scenario will change gradually and the situation will be more satisfying.

Finding co-founders & Building a Team

Your team members are the lifeline of your business. The success of your business depends up to a great extent on the fact that how effective your team is in terms of their performance. Finding cofounders is itself a gigantic mission who shares your values, ideas and ambitions in life.  Finding such people who are smarter than you and interested in investing their time in accomplishing your mission can be quite challenging.

They might be more satisfied with having an attractive salary and absolutely different ideas from you. They might not even be interested in pursuing genuinely what you are doing. Your first few employees and building up a great team will be crucial to your success as they also need to be just as enthusiastic and passionate about the startup as you.

Entrepreneurship doesn’t Guarantee Success

Entrepreneurship doesn’t guarantee 100% success. In fact, as per statistics, 9 out of 10 startups ultimately are forced to pull down their shutters. There can be a variety of unforeseen circumstances and reasons behind it. The risk of failure is quite high for any startup. As an entrepreneur, you will need to have the capability to handle risks and to stay committed in the face of setbacks and disappointments. You will have to be someone who is self-determined and bounces back from failures and stay optimistic. You are responsible for every big and small decision you make for the company.

In startups, problems seem to get created quite frequently and sometimes out of thin air. New issues keep on getting formed every now and then. These are common stumbling blocks that aim to prevent the success you desire but you don’t need to worry about these. With the passage of time, you will become better at handling such situations and they will be ultimately seen as simple puzzles that need to be solved. 

Benefits of Personal Branding

Statistics reveal that there has been an absolute increase in the number of clients seeking personal branding within organizations. What is personal branding? Personal branding refers to a person instead of a company becoming a popular brand within its niche. Although developing a personal brand is much easier said than done, but it can surely go a long way for making your business successful. The only way you can differentiate yourself from your competitors is to have a unique presence in the market, otherwise, you will be among those umpteen startups which take a lifetime to come out of their struggle for carving a niche of their own.

The truth is that your personal brand should be built on three core principles: Firstly “Value” which is basically your worth which people can utilize, secondly “Influence” and last but not the least, “Authenticity” which is all about personality and character. Personal branding entails establishing credibility, a promise of adding value to the beneficiaries and finding creative ways to remain relevant. Here are some of the benefits associated with personal branding:

Increase in Customer Loyalty

Customer loyalty can be won by having a unique value proposition for your customers. By developing a personal brand, you will be able to foster loyalty and brand advocacy among your customers as they feel great about the fact that they are dealing with the best. Ideally, you are the best service provider for whatever they are looking for within your niche. Putting a personal brand on the frontline can result in dramatic improvements in conversion rates.

People develop more Trust in you

By developing a personal brand, you enable your customers to understand what all inspires and motivates you. This makes your intentions clear and they feel more comfortable while working with your brand. It gives them a rock solid reason to get connected to you and have an undying trust in your capabilities. A long lasting impact of developing this trust is the expansion of your networking and contacts. It is a fact that people like to network with like-minded people and developing your personal brand help you in attracting such people who can turn out to be beneficial for your business and in turn, you can be beneficial for them. In fact, networking is an asset to any business and critical for its survival.

Increase in your Value

As your personal brand develops with time, people will start connecting with you more deeply rather than merely at the face of it. Remaining actively involved within your niche and increasing your credibility boosters will establish a unique identity and help in remaining at the top of your game. In such a situation, even if you increase the price reasonably, it is unlikely that they will feel the pinch as you provide them incredible value for their money. This is surely a big win for the financial health of your business.

Helps in outdoing your Competitors

Developing a personal brand is surely a way to distinguish yourself from other competitors within your domain. The more you make your personal brand stronger, the more you will stand out from others and will be able to elevate yourself. A strong and distinguished brand proves to be a big disadvantage for other lesser known competitors as they are not recognized or well-known and this gives you an edge within your specialized niche.

Recognition & Acknowledgement as an expert

When you build a strong personal brand, you develop recognition within your niche and on social media. Anyone searching for you will be able to associate you with your brand. Another big advantage is that you will also be acknowledged as an expert within your domain. The more visible you become to the target audience, the more will you will remain in the customer’s mind.

Leaders garner a lot of attention within every niche. Therefore strong leadership also leads to a large fan following/audience who would want your insights on various issues. This will enable you in sharing valuable ideas and impart guidance to others. Your personal brand will surely bring you a lot of respect and positively affect your reputation.

Creation of more Opportunities

By developing your personal brand, you are able to attract people of similar mindset and goals. This means more opportunities at employers and customer levels. You will get more fulfilling offers and more career options which are in sync with your vision and goals.

Another advantage of having a popular personal brand is that it becomes quite easy for professionals to refer clients your way. Credibility remains a major concern for them as they do not want their clients to be misguided. In a case, as yours, they feel quite comfortable about doing that without any apprehensions.

Benefits of LinkedIn Pages for your Company

LinkedIn is the largest professional network in the world. It has a total number of 460+ million users worldwide and its popularity is growing by leaps and bounds with every passing day. Professionals all over the world find it a great online networking platform to share knowledge and maintain work relationships for fostering a huge network within their niche or domain they belong to.

For any business, it has become essential to make use of this professional network to the maximum way possible for promoting their products or services. If a company is not using LinkedIn as a marketing tool, they are missing out on a ton of benefits associated with it. Here are some of the major benefits of creating a LinkedIn page for any business:

Sharing your Skills, Experience and Updates

LinkedIn allows you to share your experience, skills and expertise within your connections for creating awareness about your brand and to create brand engagement within your niche. LinkedIn helps in showcasing company culture too. Creating new updates about your company regarding new products/services, new employees or milestones highlighting your achievements can be a great source of information for not only your followers but also other members on LinkedIn within the niche. This helps to drive more traffic to your company’s website.

Not creating a LinkedIn page for the business can result in missing out on all the opportunities your business could utilize for increased conversions. Your updates can include blog posts, discussions, YouTube videos about the company and more. Each time any member within your network endorses your product or service, it creates a buzz among all your connections.

Showcase Pages

One of the features available on LinkedIn – Showcase pages enables businesses to promote specific products which they want to focus on and to popularize within their target market. Describing how new products could benefit your audience and meet their business needs is achievable through making use of these. New products especially require promotion and get introduced to the target audience due to which this feature proves to be quite beneficial in the long run.

SEO

Since all the major search engines rank LinkedIn quite high on search engine results, therefore if your LinkedIn company pages are optimized as per SEO best practices, it could prove quite beneficial for your company.  It will attain high rankings on Google search results if you are able to optimize your Company Page.

For this, use SEO friendly keywords within your description and within the copy to obtain desired rankings on Google. This becomes possible whenever your company name is searched or a keyword associated with your niche is typed by an online user while searching over the major search engines. If there are links back to your website within your posts, it can also increase the incoming visitor traffic on your website.

Links Employees of the Company

A great advantage of having LinkedIn company page is that it brings together all the employees of the company on one platform and they feel more connected with each other. When any employee updates their job profile, they are automatically linked to your company page. This is also a great feature for better networking and fostering a professional relationship among the employees, current & future customers as well as various referral sources. In this way, your employees can be a critical source for contributing to making your business successful.

Helps in Finding New Talented Employees

Who doesn’t want to have talented team members? Within the ‘Careers’ section of your LinkedIn company page, you have a wonderful opportunity to showcase your company’s achievements for attracting new and talented people as employees. Besides posting ‘job openings’, you can also post videos highlighting the culture and best practices about the company for job seekers. In fact, this will also help in driving traffic to your website.

Analytics

The Analytics feature available on a Company Page is much more impactful than the data simply available on your personal profile. It provides you information regarding the reach and the real engagement figures as well of your Company page. In fact, this will also enable you to obtain detailed insights comparison with your competitors. By making a detailed study and monitoring the kind of content you are sharing, you will be able to understand the kind of content that works best for your company so that you can alter your strategy accordingly.

Top Reasons Businesses Succeed

Entrepreneurs are strong minded individuals, who take up the challenging task of establishing a business on their own and for founding their company right from scratch. Such individuals take the leap of faith and are confident about their journey into the unknown. Any startup that wishes to get super successful has to invest umpteen hours of perspiration, investment and a lot of sacrifice for making it work. As per statistics, nine out of ten startups fail miserably. For the remaining ones, here are some of the qualities which are required to succeed for any startup:

Vision

A well-defined vision is something which every startup should aspire for. It can be also called as the compelling reason for any startup’s success. You need to be vigilant and well-aware about the industry’s trends and the spot where you stand at compared with your competitors. Entrepreneurs also need a Unique Selling Preposition to turn their startup into a successful venture.

Creating a unique product in the market which fulfills the demand of consumers is something which every entrepreneur should aim at achieving during his/her entrepreneurial journey. Craft a business plan and a strategy which enables you to achieve laurels of success in your startup venture. It is critical that a startup plans its route to monetize right from the beginning.

Determination

Ironclad and a strong determination is absolutely necessary for any business to become successful. The real test for any business is when it is able to sustain a bumpy road and survive rough waters. There are countless challenges for a new business. The attitude of never quitting is always essential for its survival and super success. Persistence and sustained efforts are the components which can enable the business to overcome roadblocks and various issues during this challenging journey.

Execution

Next, comes the execution part. Execution is one of the most critical components of getting everything right for the plain sailing of the company. Encouraging the staff and getting prospective investors excited about getting involved with your company is something you should do for long term successful ventures. You need well experienced and capable teams for delivering excellent results. Satisfied clients mean a lot for carrying forward your business. An organization requires a level-headed leader who takes the company’s reins in his own hands and knows where it is heading.

Efficient Networking

Efficient networking and maintaining the right social contacts within the industry and the domain are another major reason for making a startup successful. This can open new doors of opportunity for the company’s top management for gaining new prospects and partnerships. Establishing new connections is a great way to take your business forward. A successful entrepreneur also finds various creative ways for initiating and meeting up with potential prospects during networking events for possible breakthroughs.

Awareness about Competitors

The current market conditions and all the major competitor performances currently should be something which needs to be addressed seriously. This is one of the most important factors which startups should consider for a long haul. Many times, it happens that due to the extreme passion for their product and the excitement for launching it in the market, startups ignore to price their product correctly. Therefore all successful startups need to remain vigilant and keep a watchful eye on the target market, assess the strengths/weaknesses and the major strategies used by their top competitors for overcoming their shortcomings.

Quick at Adapting

Businesses should be open to adapting themselves to changing and new technologies. Leaders who know the secret recipe of taking smart decisions at the right time are never left behind. Having the capability to adapt themselves to changes can prove to be a big plus point for businesses who want to succeed.

Cash flow/Fundraising skills

Adequate cash flow is the soul of any business. Every startup should make sure that they have sufficient capital to run their business. Without an adequate capital and in-advance financial planning, huge businesses have bitten the dust. Adequate startup fundraising and enough cash flow are all important for any business venture to be successful. A successful startup is always able to understand the nuances of managing their finances; they avoid unnecessary expenses and they do surely master the skill of doing more with less.

Ways to use Snapchat for Business

Snapchat is a mobile photo messaging service which has become one of the fastest growing social apps in the world. It boasts of having a huge strength of 300 million+ monthly active users. About 71% of Snapchat users fall within the 18-34 age bracket which means that it targets the younger demographic. Your main audience is the Millennial and teens age group! This video and image messaging platform enable users to send self-destructive pictures/videos and all of them have a limited viewing time.

Businesses are using Snapchat for producing daily stories that engage the audience and to arouse their interest in knowing more about events occurring in their company. If you want to create a deeper connection with your followers, Snapchat can help you create loyal followers for your brand and boost brand visibility. Here are some innovative ways which can help you in using Snapchat for promoting your business.

Provide your users something unique

Snapchat allows only 10 seconds for displaying your content to your user.  This is quite a limiting factor for most businesses to showcase or talk about their product. For this, you will have to ensure that you offer enough incentive to the users to open and view your snaps so that they remain interested in knowing about the updates of your product. Some creative ideas for presenting are a quick tour of a significant part of your business, an upcoming event announcement, fun filled things being done at the workplace etc.

Simply make sure that the content you are presenting should be witty, snappy and interesting. You can also plan grand events of the company such as trade shows, anniversary, new management hires and other such important happenings which can enable your audience to directly view live events.

Tease your fans with new products

Incite your fans to get excited about the new products you are about to launch. In fact, creating a short video or an interesting picture about the new product which creates buzz and anticipation among the users can be beneficial in the long run. The unique nature of Snapchat is that the posts remain viewable till opened by the user.

Due to this, the posts are fresh, unlike other social media platforms where it is overcrowded and the posts get almost buried in the hugely crowded news feed of the user. On Snapchat, the audience remains engaged and the curiosity remains intact till the unveiling of the new products or series in the market. This will generate a high level of excitement amongst your users.

Hold contests & give them attractive offers

Holding contests, providing discounts and giveaways are innovative ways to spread the word around about your brand. Make sure that the prizes are attractive and worthy, while the entry rules for the contest are simple. The fact is that who doesn’t love free stuff? To utilize this factor, take care of this aspect so that they remain engaged with your brand and become ultimately loyal fans and strong advocates.

You could offer promo codes for special offers to all those fans who watch your entire story and ask them to send you their snap while holding your product in their hands or even go for a holiday theme. In this manner, you will be able to create a community Snapchat engagement with your users and foster a two-way communication.

Tie up with Influencers

Influencers who have a huge fan following can help generate brand awareness about your product. Getting associated with them will increase your brand value in a way that traditional media can’t. Some of the influencers can be users of your products and strong promoters. If given an opportunity, they would like to say something good about your products in an official way.

Give them the reigns for just one day and showcase your company from the perspective of a product user. This type of method can be wonderful for increasing your reach. It is very much understood that the influencer/expert will surely inform his followers about the takeover due to which there will be an increase in the engagement of your brand with the audience. Keep in mind to work with an influencer whose follower base is similar to yours so that you can engage your followers.

Interacting and Recognizing your Followers

Besides spending time on talking about your brand, make your feed with followers talking about your brand and promoting it. Launch Snapchat campaigns and announce a winner. In fact, your followers should not feel that your feed has become too self-serving. Treat your fans by showing them aspects of your business which have never been seen before. Take them behind the scenes of how you manufacture your product. Some of the other creative ideas can include introducing fans to really cool stuff and taking them behind the setup of an event or shoot.

For interacting with your followers, you can set a date and time for an interactive session of Q&A. Encourage them to send their questions to your Snapchat account or other popular social media channels beforehand. By allowing them to submit questions in advance, you can ensure that there won’t be any shortage of questions when you air that event ‘live’.