Snapchat for Camps

Snapchat is a very cool real-time photo chatting app on iOS and Android. According to Business Insider, they have 350 million photo uploads DAILY. It may still seem like a little app to a lot of people, but the growing popularity among middle and high school aged students is something that most marketers (including camp marketers) can not ignore.

I always like to look toward big brands for advice on what smaller brands should be doing when a new social medium comes around. Taco Bell recently asked all of their Twitter followers to follow them on Snapchat. They then sent a photo of their beefy crunch burrito announcing the date of its return to stores. Other brands have done this as well with big announcements or coupon promotions. There are definitely still some limitations to sending mass Snapchats and I imagine that they will launch a real advertising product sometime soon. So what can camps do now?

1. Watch other brands as they begin to use Snapchat more regularly. Read Snapchat news to get promotional ideas.

2. Start an account and ask for followers so you will be ready to go when you want to promote something.

3. Think through what a great Snapchat promotion for your camp would look like.

4. When the timing is right, execute.

It can take less than a year for a small social media platform to become a necessary marketing tool. Start brainstorming now to be one of the first summer camps to enter this space.