What Snapchat Memories Means for Marketers

Snapchat has been slowly morphing from a goofy app for teenagers into a legitimate and powerful marketing opportunity for businesses.

In it’s early days, it was a simple way to send pictures to someone without taking up memory on your phone, but with every update released the evolution of snapchat into a media destination has continued. First with Stories, then with Discover, and last week with the release of a new feature for their latest update: Memories.

This. Changes. Everything.

Okay maybe that’s a little over-dramatic, but it does change a lot of things.

Marketers have been taking Snapchat a lot more seriously lately. Influencers like Gary Vaynerchuck have been evangelizing Snapchat for marketing like there’s no tomorrow.

The Discover feature released in early 2015 gave brands an opportunity to tap into Snapchat’s worldwide audience with their own “stories” promoting their content, but Memories opens up even more opportunities for small businesses and those who may not have the largest marketing budget.

What is Snapchat Memories?

Snapchat Memories is a way to save and store your favorite snaps, with the ability to repost and resend them later. I think of it essentially as a way for snapchatters to do #ThrowbackThursday without having to take a picture of a picture on another screen.

These snaps are saved to the app, and not to your camera roll (like they used to be). Any snap that you repost from memories will be sent with a frame around it, indicating to everyone that this is a Memory and not current.

After you’ve saved snaps in your Memories, you can access Memories from the home screen (see screenshots below). Memories are viewed from newest to oldest, and you simply tap on a memory to edit and repost it.

You can also designate Memories to My Eyes Only, so you don’t have any awkward moments as you scroll through your Memories with your friends.

Another important feature of Memories is the ability to upload pictures from outside of the app - we’ll talk about that one later!

Here is Snapchat’s announcement for Memories: 

And here’s how it works:

Using Snapchat Memories is easy. You save snaps to Memories the same way you used to save snaps to your Camera Roll. Here are the basics:

After you’ve snapped your picture and put filters, text, etc. on there, click the down arrow button at the bottom left of the snap screen to save to Memories.

To view your Memories, go to the home screen. A small button will appear below the capture button, with a preview of your latest Memory - just tap it! 

Your Memories homescreen will look like this: with all of your saved Memories from newest to oldest. You can tap on a memory to re-post, delete or move to My Eyes Only.

The Camera Roll tab is where you can upload your own content to share. Anything that is saved to your phone’s Camera Roll will show up here.

There is also a search feature within Memories that allows you to search by location, as well as puts your pictures into categories like Taken Nearby, Outdoor, and Food.

What does Snapchat Memories mean for marketers?

Just like the Discover feature changed the game for marketers using Snapchat, the new Memories feature has implications here as well. While the implications of Memories may be more subtle than those of Discover, they are important for 4 reasons:

1. Snapchat is positioning itself as a top social network.

Before looking at the specific effects of Memories for marketers, we need to look at the bigger picture of what is happening here.

According to Mediakix, Snapchat has over 100 million active users and those users collectively watch 6 billion videos every day.

By introducing features that make the app less “ephemeral” and less differentiated from other social networks, Snapchat is positioning itself with Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter as a premier network for connecting with target audiences. However, the app still allows brands to connect with users in a way that no other app allows.

There is a human-ness to Snapchat that other networks often lack. It allows businesses to put faces to their brands and connect on a more authentic level.

For many brands, this is a huge opportunity to do great marketing. If you haven’t gotten onto the Snapchat marketing bandwagon yet, now might be the time to take the leap.

2. Memories allows marketers to post more professional work.

Because of the new upload feature, users can now post content from outside of the app. This is huge and probably the biggest game-changer of any of the new features. Among other things, it essentially allows users to create ad-style snaps that are professionally designed.

Think about this: you can now plan ahead and create graphics specifically for sharing on Snapchat.

You can organize campaigns ahead of time  without having to create them in real-time on Snapchat. You can also re-use these snaps as much as you want.

3. Smaller brands will save money on Snapchat marketing.

This is directly connected to the ability to now upload more professional work. While Memories removes some of the spontaneity  that marketers have had to use up until now, it will take Snapchat marketing to the next level.

This is especially true for smaller brands that don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on paid ads. Previously, only paid ads, filters, and geotags  gave you the ability to upload something you designed from outside of the app.

Now, you can  create your own designs and videos in your own programs and market them on your Snapchat channel without them looking so Snapchatty (is that a word?....It is now.)

4. Memories will only continue to broaden Snapchat’s usage and adoption.

Lastly, while Snapchat has largely been viewed as a Millennial-exclusive app, the number of users over the age of 35 has been steadily increasing.

The addition of Memories will likely multiply these numbers as Snapchat begins to appeal to older audiences. This will give brands that have an older target audience more opportunities to market effectively on the platform.

As stated previously, Snapchat gives brands a way to connect with customers and potential customers in a way that no other platform does. And the more usage and adoption of the app grow, the more crucial it will be for brands to adopt Snapchat as an effective marketing tool.

Still not convinced that Snapchat can be an effective marketing channel for brands? Check out these Snapchat marketing success stories:

• How 4 Brands are Using Snapchat to Increase Personal Connections
• 10 of the Best Brands on Snapchat Right Now (And Why They’re So Great)
• 4 Awesome Snapchat Marketing Case Studies
• The 15 Best Snapchat Campaigns of 2015