Digital Marketing Agency | Manchester & London | Impact

Brilliant Digital Marketing, in Manchester, Cheshire, and London

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If you’ve tried marketing your business on Snapchat, then you’ll probably have spent hours swearing at how bad the platform is.

Really, it sucks.

There is almost zero discoverability built into the platform (and has been left to the brilliant Ghostcodes to fill that hole).

Stats are pretty much non-existent.

Geofilters are all well and good, but unless you’re a top-tier advertiser, you don’t get access to the “Discover” section (which is where the majority of non-contact content consumption takes place).

And, if you want to get your contacts to visit your site, then the best you can hope for is that they take a screenshot of the URL and manually type it in to their browser.

I know, right? There’s more friction there than in the last Top Gear line up.

But wait, that’s not entirely true…

There’s a little known-feature of Snapchat, and I’m gonna share it here. Now, this is marketing GOLD, because no one’s really taking advantage of this yet.

Wanna know what it is?

OK, I’ll tell you.

Snapchat has an in-app browser.

And you can point it at any link you like with a simple QR code.

QR Codes? You mean, like the ones used by desperate marketers and church newsletter editors?

Yeah, ok, let’s deal with this first.

QR Codes. We’d all kinda hoped they’d died, didn’t we?

They were AWFUL. And still are, actually.

Except in this situation.

See, what Snapchat has done, is inadvertently made QR Codes relevant again – simply because their platform is a bit shit.

Snapchat has made QR Codes relevant again - simply because their platform is a bit shit. Click To Tweet

So put aside your hatred for a second, because this matters.

What’s a Snapcode?

Oh yeah, we should probably mention this too.

Every user on Snapchat is given a “Snapcode”, which is unique to them. It’s nothing more than a stylised QR Code, and it looks like this:

Hacking Snapcodes in Snapchat

 

 

This is the Snapcode for our Business Snapchat account. To use it, do one of the following:

If you’re on a desktop / laptop:

  • Grab your phone, and open Snapchat
  • Point the camera at the snapcode, and hold your finger down on the screen

If you’re on your phone:

  • Save the pic to your photos
  • Open Snapchat, and go to Menu > Add Friends > Add by Snapcode
  • Select the pic

Either way, you’ll then have the option to add us to your friends.

And you should do that. You totally should. We’re HILARIOUS on there.

Looks a bit boring though, doesn’t it?

Yeah, we couldn’t agree more. And more to the point, aside from the image in the centre, everyone’s Snapcode looks pretty much the same.

So, we did something about it.

Here’s the Snapcode we share now:

Impact Business Advisors Snapcode - Colourful Version

 

As long as both the black dots, and the black “ghost” outline around the central image, remain – the Snapcode will work exactly as before. Except now it looks a bit more awesome, yeah?

OK, enough about Snapcodes. What’s this about an in-app browser?

Oh yeah, nearly forgot about that.

OK. So, what if instead of scanning in an official Snapcode, you asked people to scan in a generic QR code instead?

It works. It totally works.

And by “works”, I mean, if you create a QR Code to point to a link, Snapchat will open an in-app browser, and navigate to that exact page.

Create a QR Code, and Snapchat will open an in-app browser, and navigate straight to the link. Click To Tweet

So, for example, scan this code, and see what happens:

Snapcode For ImpactGroupDT Instagram Account

What’s happened here, is that Snapchat has read the QR code, recognised it as a link to a URL, opened the browser window, and gone straight* there.

So, rather than adding us on Snapchat, it’s opened up our Instagram account.

(* Well, almost straight there. We routed it through Google’s URL Shortener first, so we can get some stats. We’re all sneaky and clever like that, see?)

That’s pretty cool. What else could I use it for?

Well, this is where the possibilities are endless…

  • Use it to send traffic to your blog.
  • Use it to send traffic to your landing pages.
  • Send Snapchat users to a dedicated offer page – JUST FOR THEM.
  • Use it to send people to a video of kittens.
  • Well, pretty much anything, really.

Want a FREE Digital Marketing one-on-one workshop?

You don’t have to do this alone – we can do the hard work for you, and get your business up and running at full steam online.

Plus – and this is the good bit – we’re GIVING AWAY free 30 minute one-on-one workshops to get you started.

Limited spaces are available, so request your session NOW. Just click above to get started.

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David Trott

David has worked with countless UK charities, businesses, and schools - with a brilliant track record of helping them with their biggest challenges. David is the founder of the Impact group - including Impact Charity Advisors, Impact Business Advisors, and Impact Education Support.