It’s important for PR professionals to utilize photo sharing platforms to reach their publics and stay up to date with trends. Check out this article to find out whether Instagram or Snapchat is the best way to go.
The world of social media can be overwhelming. It seems like almost every day there’s a new platform coming out, and it can be difficult to stay up to date with trends. Especially for PR professionals using social media for business, its crucial to make sure your content is relevant, and you are using platforms that resonate with your publics or target audience. Today, photo sharing platforms are some of the most popular. These are great tools for those in the PR field because they allow you to get creative and think of new and exciting ways to lure in your audience visually. If you’re a modern PR professional you need to be on these platforms, and the big two are Instagram and Snapchat.
Instagram vs Snapchat: Reaching Audiences
Due to its meteoric rise in popularity over the last few years, most public relations professionals have a pretty good knowledge around Instagram and are using it effectively to reach out to their publics. Instagram is a great tool because it allows you to reach out to a wide audience with normal posts and the use of hashtags, but recently the story option has taking personal users and the industry by storm. As Youtuber Neil Patel mentions in his video Snapchat VS Instagram: Here’s Which Social Media Platform You Should Use For Business, the Instagram story function has proven to be a great asset for public relations. With regular Instagram posts, the amount of content you should post in a day is limited because you don’t want to overwhelm your followers’ feeds at risk of turning them off, not getting likes, or even getting unfollows. However, the story function allows you to post as much as you want as they are viewed more like a narrative. Patel likens these stories to reality TV because they serve as a great way to keep your followers up to date at their viewing leisure. That way, you can keep the content continuously flowing and inform your audience without bogging them down. Additionally, the many features of Instagram stories allow you to be creative and keep your content fresh and interesting. Stories are very on trend right now with influencers, celebrities, brands and the average Instagram user. From livestreams to polls and everything in between, the options for content are endless with Instagram stories.
Snapchat: Uncharted Territory for the PR Industry
Although Instagram is a great professional medium, like I mentioned before its important to stay relevant and keep up to date with trends and popular platforms to reach out to a wide audience. Snapchat is a relatively newer photo sharing platform, but it comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Because it is on the newer side, some PR professionals are afraid to utilize it because they question its validity, however by not using the platform they are alienating an entire target audience and age group. According to the article Snapchat VS Instagram: The Main Differences You Need to Know and Why by Russ Shumaker for Hearst Communications,
“Snapchat is the app for Generation Y, as these graphs show, while Instagram outperforms Snapchat for Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and beyond. Even though Instagram has three times as many uses as Snapchat, the younger demographic still prefers customizable but short-lived snaps over Instagram photos and videos”
-Shumaker
Even though Instagram has more users overall, if you want your content to reach Gen Z you really need to be utilizing Snapchat. As a young generation who has grown up with social media, Gen Z is on top of all of the trends, so as a PR professional, if you want to stay relevant you need to be using both photo sharing platforms.
The Learning Curve: Using Snapchat Professionally
Snapchat can be a daunting and confusing platform for those who haven’t grown up using it. A photo sharing platform where the photos disappear might not make sense at first glance, but there are many positive elements to Snapchat. One of the main ones is it is a great platform for advertising and connecting with a younger audience. Of course, due to the nature of Snapchat there is the possibility for some mishaps to occur, which is why it is important to learn about the platform and make sure you are using it in a smart and professional manner.
As Shumaker stated, Snapchat does have a somewhat controversial reputation due to hackings of pictures in the past. However, if you are running your account professionally and only posting appropriate content, this shouldn’t be something to worry about from a business standpoint. However, if you are using Snapchat for advertising its imperative that you are being mindful of the ads you’re placing.
The Power of Celebrity: Snapchat Advertising Gone Wrong
The article Rihanna Hits Snapchat Where it Hurts from NewstalkZB shares an important lesson about the dangers of using Snapchat incorrectly. According to the article, in 2018 Snapchat faced a huge blow that cost the company $600m for placing an ad for a website with a game mocking Rihanna’s domestic violence situation with Chris Brown. Immediately, Rihanna took to Instagram to speak out against the issue, urging users to delete the app, which led to immediate backlash for Snapchat and an enormous loss of money. This story serves as an important warning for any PR professionals wanting to incorporate Snapchat into their repertoire. If you’re going to use Snapchat, you need to double check that your content is appropriate. With the opportunity to reach mass audiences so quickly on a photo sharing platform such as Snapchat, one mistake could cost you everything. Especially with celebrities and influencers with millions of followers, their social media influence is too large to risk anything.
The main takeaway here is that there are pros and cons to both Instagram and Snapchat as photo sharing platforms for public relations professionals. In order to reach all audiences and stay current, you need to be using both. Just make sure that you are doing your research and being smart with every post.
Maria's Musings 