Snapchat

Putting the Story in Snap Story

Storyware does Snap Story. How’s that for a tongue twister?

For this year’s Tom Tom Founders Festival in Charlottesville, VA, we took control of the festival’s Snapchat – designing a custom filter and posting original content in order to drive engagement with all those using the app who attended the week-long celebration of innovation, creativity, and community.

As one of the 100 million daily Snapchat users (I’m a millennial after all), I was well aware that young people everywhere are constantly snapping selfies and checking stories. And not just stories of their friends – celebrities, businesses, and events have joined the Snap party in order to strengthen their brand messages and reach new audiences.

In fact, Snapchat has transformed the concept of photo sharing, maintaining a steady increase in popularity since its creation in 2011. The social media app lets you share photos and videos for up to ten seconds, then *poof* they’re gone. Uploading images to “My Story” means any follower can view that content for up to 24 hours. Then *poof* gone again.

We created Tom Tom’s account with a story visible to anyone following @tomtomfest. On top of that, we created a geofilter for the festival. Stay with us – a geofilter is a custom banner or graphic you can select to show up on your snap whenever a user is in the designated geographic area.  The filter – which covered the area of Charlottesville where Tom Tom hosted concerts, food trucks, and a craft beer garden – allowed users to engage not only with their friends, but with the festival, helping get the Tom Tom brand out there for everyone to see.

We designed the filter in Adobe Photoshop, using elements from Tom Tom’s brand that reflected the playful tone of the app. After following a few size constraints and setting the dates and times of the filter, Snapchat approved our design within 24 hours.

So other than jumping on the snapwagon, why did we do it? While Snapchat can be a great source of entertainment, it’s also a highly personal app. Features like captions, doodles, and filters allow you to craft your own customizable message to either one or all of your friends. We wanted to create a specific archive of content reflecting Tom Tom’s brand voice; this new outlet of content widened the audience beyond the 38,000 festival attendees to any user on Snapchat. Whether that was videos of concerts, photos of food (couldn’t resist), or interview clips with attendees, the snaps created a fun, diverse story that reflected the personality of the Tom Tom Festival.

Key takeaway: whether you’re a business, nonprofit, or freelancer, Snapchat’s customizable geofilters help you strengthen your brand’s message by personalizing the conversation between you and your listener.

Check out our video of the week of snaps from Tom Tom: