#btw17 | Campaigning on Snapchat? Parties and colourful images

Funny animal masks, colourful stickers, face swap, geofilters, Bitmojis—Snapchat lets users unleash their creativity. The app allows them to create photos and short videos and send them directly to friends or post them as a ‘story’. This particularly appeals to young digital natives and offers unexpected opportunities for election campaigning on Snapchat. For parties—and of course companies, clubs and associations—the platform offers access to a very young audience among whom Snapchat is far more popular than established media such as Facebook. But have all parties discovered the app and campaigning on Snapchat? How skilfully are they using it, just weeks before the federal election? We look at the party landscape on Snapchat and give you specific Lilit tips for a successful Snapchat strategy. Whether you’re a politician or entrepreneur: Lilit tells you what to watch for in your social media presence —and what to avoid! https://www.lilit-kommunikation.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Lilit-Snapchat-btw17_neu.jpg

Election campaigning on Snapchat—what it’s about:

For older users who don’t use Snapchat, the app is often a puzzle at first. But it isn’t really that complicated. The principle: entertaining, playful content available for a short time and then deleted. You share your impressions with other users. The images are immediate and fleeting. It’s about closeness, timeliness and naturalness, not perfect pictures for eternity. Users choose whether to share content only with Snapchat friends or with everyone on Snapchat. Public stories are available on a map, displayed where they were created. This creates a local connection—an interesting feature for local politicians and small businesses. People without Snapchat accounts cannot access the content. To follow another user, you add them as a ‘friend’; there is no like or follow function. Overall, the app conveys closeness, authenticity and a small-community feeling. Parties campaigning on Snapchat can engage users much more personally than on Facebook. But do they use this opportunity?

Conservative CSU—young campaigning on Snapchat

Every Friday: the CSU weekly review (csu_de, Snapchat). Some may be surprised: CSU was the first party to venture onto Snapchat, using it since November 2015. Its content is convincing too: it uses the medium’s possibilities and distinctive features without losing its political focus. It snaps from events such as press conferences and party conferences, and publishes a weekly review every Friday. This provides informative, regular content that is usually well presented. Weekly reviews consist of images with short statements or facts, decorated with speech bubbles, colours, stickers and emojis. Information is delivered briefly and playfully—exactly in Snapchat’s spirit. Horst Seehofer Bitmoji: the face of the CSU profile (csu_de, Snapchat). CSU has also created a Bitmoji—a cartoon version—of Horst Seehofer. It is used both as the profile picture and directly in stories, adding humour, recognisability and a clear party connection. (Creating your own cartoon Bitmoji is technically quite simple; here you’ll find instructions on the MZ website.) CSU thus adapts to the format without appearing frivolous or artificial. Yet even the best Snapchat content is useless if nobody watches it. Finding users is much harder than on other platforms: you need their exact username or Snapcode—a QR code for the account. CSU gets this right too, repeatedly directing users to its Snapchat account through other social media. Overall, CSU proves that a conservative platform need not mean a poor social media strategy. Some other parties could learn from it.

SPD and campaigning on Snapchat: innovative, engaging content

SPD is also on Snapchat as spd_de. Like CSU, it knows how to use the platform. It has created a Bitmoji of its party leader and chancellor candidate Martin Schulz and regularly posts individual snaps and stories. These announce events, accompany SPD MPs on door-to-door campaigning or take users to party conferences. It also uses innovative gadgets such as Spectacles, Snapchat’s camera glasses. SPD’s posts are more varied than CSU’s: individual announcement snaps alternate with full event stories. However, there is no regular feature such as a weekly review. Another major omission: the account is barely promoted. How are users supposed to know SPD is on Snapchat with interesting content? Martin Schulz celebrates marriage equality as a Bitmoji (spd_de, Snapchat)

FDP: the Snapchat newcomer

Dull campaigning on Snapchat: create real snaps instead of recycling old material! (fdp_bund, Snapchat). Brand new on Snapchat: FDP, found as fdp_bund. In July 2017, it announced its arrival on the youthful app. Since then, the Free Democrats have been snapping busily. The content still needs improvement: often they simply post images or graphics with text, presumably also published unchanged on other platforms. We say: #boring. A white border and ‘from your camera roll’ reveal that the images were imported, not created in the app. This suggests FDP is merely recycling content from other social media. That shows little creativity and doesn’t go down well with users. ‘Swipe up’—links to external content
(fdp_bund, Snapchat). But FDP was a genuine Snapchat newcomer during the 2017 campaign. To be fair, the Free Democrats learned a lot within days. Volker Wissing’s account takeover in late July was already much better. Content was adapted to Snapchat rather than simply copied from elsewhere. FDP also uses ‘Swipe up’, a feature other parties have barely used so far. It links to external content—a useful tool for connecting stories to further information and quickly, easily directing interested users to your website. Shortly after launch, the verdict was: FDP still had plenty of room to develop, but also showed that you can make a reasonably good start very quickly.

Other parties have catching up to do

What about the other parties? Die Linke (die_linke) has also been on Snapchat for more than a few weeks, but is barely active and posts only sporadically—for example, just one story over roughly four weeks, and not a particularly good one. Snaps from a summer party lacked a recognisable style and didn’t even establish a connection to the party. The Greens, CDU and AfD appeared entirely inactive on Snapchat during the 2017 campaign. Some could be found under their names, but posted no content. This was especially surprising for CDU, which already publishes good stories on Instagram .

Don’t be afraid of Snapchat

Snapchat is a youthful, playful medium that works very differently from familiar social media. It’s understandable that many still struggle with it. The controls often seem obscure at first, but young users rarely hesitate to experiment. This is another reason why younger people dominate it so far. But anyone wanting to join them or reach that audience must overcome their hesitation.

Lilit’s tips for Snapchat beginners:

Snapchat is interesting not only for parties, but also for associations, clubs and businesses. They can reach the young generation where it already spends time every day—an opportunity they should use. Here are Lilit’s key tips:

• Consider your audience: Before trying Snapchat, ask: will I reach my audience here? Is the effort worthwhile? Snapchat probably isn’t the right platform for older customers unfamiliar with technology.
• Experiment! Only a few parties are on Snapchat so far. The others are missing an opportunity. They should be bold, venture onto the platform and experiment. The same applies to companies and associations. The good news: depending on your settings, content is visible only to your Snapchat friends. So you can initially ‘practise’ snapping on a small scale, with few followers, while developing your own strategy.
• Create content on Snapchat: Produce your images and videos in the app. Reusing material created for other platforms is noticeable—and usually unpopular with users.
• Creativity: Use the medium’s possibilities—stickers, filters, masks, text and more—to make content funny, playful and colourful. Geofilters generate local reach, while Swipe Up drives conversions for your website.
• No perfectionism: Footage is shot on a phone. Slightly shaky or blurry images are fine; they add immediacy and authenticity.
• Less is more: Snapchat is a quick, entertaining medium. Don’t overload stories with information. A story should last no more than a few minutes.
• Consistency: Stories are deleted automatically after 24 hours and past posts cannot be viewed. If you don’t post, you’re practically invisible to your friends. So snap regularly!
• Personalisation: Recurring faces give the profile a personal point of reference. One or more central people create recognisability and warmth. A Bitmoji can serve the same purpose playfully and humorously. Ideally, the same people keep appearing in stories. Another possibility is a takeover: a politician or influencer runs the account for a while, giving it personality. Why not give a younger employee responsibility for Snapchat? An intern close to this young medium could take over the profile, for example.
• Promote the profile: Users must actively add the account. Keep drawing attention to your username or Snapcode on your website and other social media channels.

Give this young medium a try and get our help with your Snapchat presence! Lilit advises and supports companies, politicians and clubs with their social media strategy. Need a seminar or an individual strategy? Write to us and we’ll prepare a personalised offer. Curious for more tips? 1. Read how the parties present themselves on Facebook and what we can learn from them. 2. What matters in election campaign storytelling on Instagram. 3. And the recipe for successful campaigning on Twitter.