Localogy 20/20: The Intersection of Local & Social

Snap continues to inch closer towards local commerce. Historic steps include geo-filters, and more recent moves include local lenses and business listings in Snap Map. Those features are notable on their own but get more interesting when considering the SMB promotional implications that come with them.

These marketing products include paid AR lenses — though these are mostly in the realm of larger brands at the moment (more on that in a bit). And they include Snap’s new Promote Local Place paid listings in Snap Map. As we’ve examined, this lets SMBs create promoted listings to drive foot traffic among local Snap users.

Speaking of Snap users, a few advantages and differentiators are threaded throughout Snap’s expanding SMB marketing products, said Alex Dao at Localogy 20/20. That list includes unique access to Gen-Z, greater organic “discoverability” than other channels, and an SMB-friendly ad creation workflow.

Drilling Down on Snapchat’s Local Place Promote

Discoverability & Democratization

Starting with the demographic advantage, Snap has more 13-34 year olds active than any other channel, including Facebook and Instagram. Quantifying that value, Gen-Z has $323 million in direct purchasing power ($1.2 trillion in indirect influence), which will only grow as the generation phases into the workforce.

This essentially means Snap can offer SMBs incremental and non-duplicated reach to an attractive audience. If we pan back to Snap users of all ages, the engagement levels are likewise notable: Snapchat users create 4 billion snaps per day, and the most engaged users activate AR lenses 30x per-day.

That brings us to the next advantage on Dao’s list: organic discoverability. The above levels of engagement plus Gen-Z social vitality mean they’re out and about using Snap Map to find each other. Promoting local businesses in the same place could compel those users to visit SMBs as social waypoints and meeting spots.

The third advantage on Dao’s list is democratization. Snap brings its signature minimalist workflow to the ad creation process, making it an SMB-friendly ad tool. Though this is a common rallying cry in the world of SMB marketing, vendors achieve the right level of dead-simple ad creation with surprisingly-rare frequency.

Digital Accoutrements

Speaking of democratizing ad and media creation, this theme defines everything that Snap has done with AR lenses. It has lowered barriers to lens creation through its Lens Studio platform by bringing it within the reach of non-programmers. Could the next step down this path involve bringing it to SMBs?

The idea is that SMBs can create branded AR face filters and other digital accouterments that users play with. This carries the organic discovery principle above, while offering deep levels of engagement. In other words, it doesn’t get much more “engaging” than users literally wearing your branding on their faces.

Though Dao has to be careful about forward-looking statements, the implication here is that Snap could do the same for SMB-branded AR lenses that it’s done with Snap Map advertising. In other words, it could carry Snap’s signature minimalist workflow to democratize the AR lens creation and ad-buying process for SMBs.

This SMB + AR topic is one we plan to explore with Snapchat during an encore appearance at Localogy’s next conference in the Spring and its larger flagship show in Fall 2021.  Stay tuned for more details.

Snap Developer Conference Recap: The Local Edition


The Intersection of Local & Social
Millennials & Gen Z have 1 trillion in spending power and Snapchat continues to emerge as a place where they are going to organically discover local businesses. Recent platform developments have been geared to help SMBs reach this engaged audience, and drive results to build and scale their business. We break it down with Snap’s head of global sales partnerships.

Speaker(s):
Alex Dao, Snap

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