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Fanbytes: "Snapchat is a very young and misunderstood platform"

Fanbytes: "Snapchat is a very young and misunderstood platform"

In the wacky world of social media, Snapchat is still regarded as a bit of a wildcard. 

Companies and brands often take adverts built for other social platforms and repurpose them for Snapchat, but that lackadaisical approach isn't going to spark any effective return on investment. 

But Snapchat is different. It requires interactive, concise and personal pitches from influencers that people trust.

One company that aims to create ads tailor-made for the app is advertising platform Fanbytes. Their main form of advertisement is the Sandwich Ad Format.

Through Fanbytes' design network, brands can create adverts and then distribute them at scale across a curated influencer network. Influencers can then personally endorse products or services as part of their own Snapchat story. 

Bitesized potential

"This is one of our proprietary ad formats," Fanbyte's head of marketing Miri Qylafi said, speaking to Influencerupdate.biz

"Snapchat is a bit of a quirky platform and lots of people seem to discount it offhand because they're not sure how to market through it. When Fanbytes came in we saw that there was a huge amount of potential in Snapchat.

"We have a four snap format. The adverts usually sit in an influencer's story. The first snap will be the influencer coming on and giving some context to what they're going to talk about.

"The second snap will be a personalised ad that are similar to Snapchats existing format. It could be a trailer or a product advertisement of some kind.

"The third snap, the inflluencer comes back on and reinforces the message and says something positive.

"The last snap is a simple swipe up display that leads to the destination of the product being promoted."

Fanbyte's unique four-part Sandwich Ad

Up the influence

While this format appears to create some good results for brands - an average completion rate of 93 per cent according to Fanbytes - it's unclear how this format benefits an influencer.

"We generally price our campaigns in relation to views," said Qylafi.

"However, we do also consider that while some influencers may get less views, their engagement rates may be a lot higher. If their audience cares more then they're more likely to take action.

"Our campaign and technical teams have developed an algorithm that will sort through all of the data we gather which considers views, engagement rates and audience interests. We then use that data to give influencers a 'Fanbytes Score'.

"A Fanbytes Score is a rating system that we use in order to determine which influencers will be the best fit for a specific campaign. It goes from zero to five, and the higher that score is, the more engaging an influencer is considered."

Is Snapchat a worthy venture?

According to Statista, Snapchat was the 16th most popular social platform in terms of active users in January 2018. It has a small userbase compared to the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even LinkedIn. 

Importantly though, its average userbase is very young, being the platform of choice for 73 per cent of US teens between 13 and 18 years old.

Targeting the platforms with audience numbers in to the billions rather than 'just' the millions makes more sense. Snapchat only has an active userbase of 225 million. 

"Snapchat is a great platform because of engagement, but it's main draw is indeed that it has a very young demographic," Qylafi said.

"If you're looking to advertise to a young audience (between 13 and 25) then Snapchat is the place to be. Especially as a lot of these 13-to-18 year olds aren't on Facebook or Instagram.

"You may think that this is a useless demographic because they're not actively spending, but these young people do actually influence what becomes a trend later down the line.

"Another thing to consider is that Snapchat is a very young and misunderstood platform, which means it's not overcrowded with advertisers yet.Your audience won't experience 'ad-fatigue' that comes with the larger platforms.

"Because of that we're seeing up to 90 per cent completion rates on the majority of our Snapchat-based ads. People are actually going through and consuming the ad instead of skipping past it."

Snapchat is still a very young platform and marketers are still cautious to invest. However, its infancy and unclutted landscape may actually make it a haven for advertisers - especially those looking to target a younger audience. 

Editor

Danielle Partis is editor of PocketGamer.biz and former editor of InfluencerUpdate.biz. She was named Journalist of the Year at the MCV Women in Games Awards 2019, as well as in the MCV 30 under 30 2020. Prior to Steel Media, she wrote about music and games at Team Rock.