Analyzing Snapchat's new Features: Linking Strong Content to Product Promotion

Snapchat now allows users to post links in Snaps and marketers are loving it.

Last week, Snapchat released three new features to its app. These features are:

• Backdrops allow users to cut out any part of an image and replace it with colorful patterns.
• Voice Filters, as the name implies lets users change their voice with multiple voice filter options.
• The above features are great for improving content creation on Snapchat but what really got marketers excited worldwide is Paperclip.

With Paperclip, Snapchat finally breaks its rule of no links. Paperclip lets users add links to their Snaps, a feature that was only available to brands and advertisers in the past.

What Paperclip Means for Marketers/Content Creators

Marketers are always looking out for new ways to promote their products and Paperclip provides just that. With the introduction of Paperclip, marketers and content creators can finally tap into the 166 million daily active users on Snapchat to organically promote their products and content.

Edge Over Instagram

Both Snapchat and Instagram have had a long-standing rule of no links. Even though Instagram allows links in stories of verified profiles, Snapchat’s latest move gives it an advantage over Instagram. The reason is that majority of users are unverified but Snapchat is now giving them more tools to promote content and products than Instagram is at present.

It’s Not For Everyone

Every marketer wants a good return on investment. It’s a good way to measure success or failure of a marketing campaign. Marketers don’t market for marketing sake. They market to drive sales and conversions. Because of this reason, Paperclip is not for every marketer.

In our opinion, Paperclip will provide a better ROI for marketers of physical products, travel and leisure, events and vlogging. The reason is that they can create engaging Snaps that links to the products or events they’re selling or link to other interesting content on their video blogs.

Paperclip may not be great for marketing news sites and written content blogs. The future of content is video. Snapchat users want short and engaging video content. They wouldn’t want to go from engaging video to boring written text.

With Instagram’s history of copying Snapchat features, how long before they copy these latest ones too?