5 Ways Dealerships Can Leverage Snapchat to Drive Engagement

There are many well-known apps for creating opportunities to engage with consumers, and Snapchat is quickly climbing to the top. Many of us didn’t quite understand how Snapchat could be used for a business at first. However, with 186 million active daily users, Snapchat has been the fastest growing network since 2014, now even more popular than Twitter. All those users send an estimated 9,000 snaps every second on Snapchat, which makes the app a high-profile platform for publishing and consuming user-generated content. The app boasted 10 billion video views daily back in 2016.

Attracting New Business

An increasing portion of the traffic on Snapchat comes from marketers and advertisers who want to use the app’s growth to build their audiences. Snapchat added a special area for advertising-supported content from online publishers. That part of the site, known as “Discover,” displays up to one million short video ads every day. You can use the advertising feature of Snapchat to make movie snippets that present your brand, but you can also use it in other ways to connect with a large number of prospective customers.

Snapchat is a great tool for engaging a younger demographic. As of 2018, about 45 percent of Snapchat users are 18-24 years old, and 71 percent are under 34 years old. Photos and videos that are shared appear on Snapchat temporarily, making it a popular venue for the millennial generation, most of whom are likely to purchase a vehicle in the next few years.  

Snapchat offers many valuable ways for car dealerships to connect with consumers:

Use Geofilters

Auto dealers can promote sales using geofilters, which are Snapchat lens customized with small art graphics that can be placed over a user’s photo. When a Snapchat user takes a picture from a particular location, that person has the option to select an “On Demand” geofilter from that location, letting his or her followers know where, when, and why he or she took that Snap.

Offer Promotions

If your auto dealership is having an event or sale, incentives can be utilized such as  coupons and discounts to encourage your shoppers to use Snapchat to promote the sale. If those shoppers buy a car, the first thing he or she is going to want to do is share that exciting news with family and friends via social media.

Share Customer Stories

Post about new or happy customers. Millennials in particular love seeing their faces on social media. Ask those happy new car owners if you can post their photos on Snapchat, exposing your dealership to an even broader audience.  Seeing an authentic experience with your dealership is a great way to encourage others to visit your location for their next purchase.

Create Engaging Content

Build trust with posts that educate people about maintenance, safety, and other helpful topics.  Users are more likely to come back to a site they can rely on and that makes them feel like they are benefiting from following that site. Alternate safety posts with fun posts from contests and be sure to continuously post photos of new inventory to intrigue potential customers.