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Snap Just Made A Whole Bunch Of 'Glassholes' Happy
October 4, 2016
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You may have read by now that Snapchat officially changed its name to "Snap."
Part of the reason behind that move is Snap wants to be seen more as a camera company than a social platform. They also introduced a new product called "Spectacles," hyped as "a new type of camera."
Snap writes in the company blog, "Spectacles connect directly to Snap and transfer your Memories [photos/videos] directly into the app."
"Spectacles" is similar to what Google attempted with their now defunct "Glasses."
"Glasses" never took off.
Besides $1500 a pop not being an ideal price for a product not understood and not in high demand, words like "creepy" and "pompous" became associated with "Glasses."
In fact, users were quickly called, "Glassholes."
Here's my "Glasshole" selfie from 2014 - using a pair purchased by Jacobs Media:
So having the backstory on "Glasses" could make you think Snap's Spectacles will suffer the same weird death.
Or maybe not.
Snap continues its tremendous growth year to year. To date, they have 150 million daily active users and 10 billion video views each day.
And Spectacles is a much greater brand extension to Snap than Google Glasses was. It's also reasonably priced (compared to Google Glasses) at $130.
But will it make sense for your brand to jump on the Spectacles bandwagon when released?
If you entertain and inform 16-35 year olds - then, yes - Spectacles should be on your radar.
While we already know 70% of Snap's core users are Millennials, check out the data on the time spent on Snap from Fred Jacobs, President of Jacobs Media/jacAPPS.
It's from Techsurvey12, their web-based survey conducted earlier this year among mostly members of radio station email databases.More than 250 stations across North America took part, producing 39,500+ interviews.
Fred explains the graph below:
"When you look at Millennials who use social media (almost all of them), more than half are on Snapchat (55%) and more than three in ten (31%) use Snapchat every day. That puts Snapchat only behind Facebook, and very close to Instagram."
And what's even more important to your decision making process is looking at Snap broken out by format.
Fred shares that critical information in this next slide:
If you're a Rhythmic CHR (RUR), Alternative Rock (ALT) or CHR station, it's missed opportunity if we're not interacting with the audience on Snap.
We're giving them permission to form loyalties elsewhere when we're not where they are.
Country (CTY), Hot AC (HAC) and Rock (RCK) are slightly above average use so you may not need to be on Snap every day - but it's clearly a place where the audience dabbles.
But before you jump on Snap (and ultimately Spectacles) - respect how it's being used.
Don't treat it like a broadcast tool. This is where the audience is capturing the immediacy of their lives - documenting real time moments.
So emulate that behavior to be welcomed.
Facebook will likely provide the greatest scale for a long time coming, but always consider what else is going on in the social space.
It's a chance to be part of our audiences' lives when they're not listening.
And maybe, when done right, opportunity to "pinball" them back to the assets we own, such as the "mothership," the FM/AM stick, to ensure we're keeping our brands in the hands of the fans.
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