With social media being a primary driving force in advertising and brand awareness, and being popular with the young adults and kids in your household, you are probably wondering about how to use these platforms for your business. It really depends on your brand, the size of your business and your target market.

Both platforms are really only good if you are selling consumer goods or services to young adults in the 19-24 age range and/or children. If you are marketing to kids, be aware of regulations in the US and Canada which govern the kind of content you can post. At this time, we recommend neither platform for consumer goods companies that target an older demographic or business-to-business goods and services. That may change with TikTok a few years in the future, but it isn’t likely to change with Snapchat. 

TikTok & Snapchat: It’s where GenZ and kids live 

Both platforms are targeted to GenZ and under with 82% of Snapchat’s user base under the age of 35. TikTok’s audience does skew more towards 13-24 year olds but that is starting to evolve as celebrities, influencers and even politicians join the platform.

Snapchat currently works better for larger brands, especially in regards to advertising budget. But with 218 million users daily as of January 2020, it’s still worth exploring.

With 500 million active users per month, TikTok is the more accessible channel for smaller businesses. TikTok recently launched a new platform called “TikTok For Business” that is the new home for all its marketing solutions for brands. 

Those are a lot of potential customers if your business is consumer-focused and tends to sell mostly to a younger demographic, with 69% of TikTok users being under 25. Understanding how to reach that potential audience and how to discover what your target clients are saying is key.

Snapchat Basics for Branding

Snapchat is a picture and video based chat app focused on creating “stories.” Users connect with brands and content creators via the “Discover” icon located on the right-hand of the home screen. 

Once you sign up for Snapchat and set up a Business account you can cross-promote your Snapchat username on other social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram) to let your existing users know you’re now on Snapchat. You can create an “add me” URL by clicking on your username or you can create a snapcode. A snapcode is a badge that people can scan using their phone or tablet. It works like a QR code to help users find you and your branded content more easily.

Snapchat content disappears after 24 hours so it’s important to post new content daily. You can boost engagement by creating filters and lenses specific to your business or brand, offer discounts and promo codes to encourage sales and add links to your stories to drive traffic to your website.

Frequent engagement with your followers is key to making Snapchat work for your business.

Trends are key on TikTok 

TikTok is a short-form video platform that connects users with content via the “Discover” option or by creating recommendations based on a user’s interests. Since it was originally a music app TikTok users commonly share videos featuring dancing, singing and music. Think of it as a global glee club. 

Unlike Snapchat, you can skip the step of creating an individual user account and go directly to creating a business account. 

It’s important to note that the app has an unweighted algorithm that shares videos in the order that they’re posted, so posting often is the best way to create a following.  Hashtags are a common search option so creating targeted hashtags and knowing which hashtags are trending is very effective. One of the major benefits of TikTok is that it uses your geographic location to target local audiences using localized hashtags.

Taking part in trending hashtag challenges or creating your own is the perfect to start audience engagement. TikTok is really most effective to create brand awareness. Users on the platform tend to shun videos that are overproduced or overtly promotional so keeping content authentic and natural will yield the best results.

No matter which app you choose as a marketing channel, it’s important to keep your content light and fun, shoot your videos in portrait mode (vertically) to accommodate the format of the platforms and use trending hashtags to attract viewers to your content.

In short, both platforms require unique content which requires quite a bit of work. This work is worth it if you have decided that Gen Z and under is a key target demographic for your company given the large user base and high engagement of both channels. Otherwise, it’s good to park the idea for a while and keep an eye on the key demographics of both platforms. 

For more information on how our social media experts can help your business determine what platforms are best for you to develop your audience on, contact us today.