One effective way to get more Snapchat followers, increase engagements, and promote your products is through a Snapchat takeover. If you are a social media marketer and you’ve not tried this, then you need to improve on your marketing efforts.

To host a successful Snapchat takeover, you need to get the right influencer that will attract your audience’s attention while ensuring every other thing that will make the takeover successful such as the timing, promotion, and the actual takeover gets sorted out without any mistakes.

Let’s look at some of the ways you can takeover Snapchat and do great things for your brand and business:

Set goals

Of course, everything starts with a purpose. You are not running a Snapchat takeover because you want because every other brand is doing it. There should be a reason behind it. What are your goals and objective for this takeover? Are they achievable, or are you wasting your social media marketing budget for it?

Before considering planning for the takeover, ensure your goals are SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely). Specific means your goals should be clear and concise; don’t add too many goals, or it would work against the time.

When you look at its measurability, it means there should be metrics that you can use to measure your efforts. Attainable means it must be something possible to achieve. Relevance is telling you not to jump on the bandwagon because everyone is doing so, ask yourself, is a Snapchat takeover in line with my business objectives?

Lastly, think about setting a time limit. A goal is part of a long term strategy and not the strategy itself. How soon can you wrap the Snapchat takeover and concentrate on other parts of the business? You don’t need something taking all year to plan when you have other vital things on the table.

Find the right influencer

The influencer would be the person hosting the Snapchat, so you should naturally find someone whose works and reputation align with your brand’s values.

Don’t choose an influencer because he or she is a celebrity or has a bit of popularity; instead, get someone your audience can relate with and would be thrilled to have as a host.

You can check out Snapchat analytics to assess the demographics of their followers to see if it matches yours. There are also lots of analytical tools you can use in checking out influencers and their metrics, such as vanity metrics, view time, and so on. These tools will help find the perfect match for your Snapchat takeover; you can make use of them.

After you’ve seen a few seemingly suitable candidates, get the perfect one by continuously tracking their accounts for some days. Find out the level of interaction and engagement their followers have with their content.

You also want to know the communication style the influencers have with their followers. Do they sound free, serious, instructional, open-minded, etc.  Do a mental check to see if their voice and tone align with your brand whether it’s something your target audience would find comforting or irritated.

When searching for the best influencer, remember it doesn’t have to be a celebrity, concentrate on someone who can get the job done without hassles.

Set the time

Timing on Snapchat is a bit different from other platforms since users spend about 30 minutes a day on the platform, and this is not in a stretch, but short bursts. So you need to plan for the time for the Snapchat takeover carefully.

First, remember you are working with an influencer, so check if their highest engagement day, which could be during the weekends or weekdays. Also, find out the time such as during the day or night. You should also take a look at their audience location to know their time zone and the length of their average view time.

When setting the time, you can also decide to host it immediately before a product launch, a relevant party, and any other event that the takeover could help boost.

Create a marketing plan campaign

 After getting the right influencer and confirming the time for the takeover works with them, it’s time to let your audience know since it’s all for them. Work with your influencer using about two weeks to promote it. Let the host know how all the details about how you intend to go about it.

You should also be clear on what to expect from their efforts. Let the influencer know that their followers should follow your brand, tune in on the takeover date, and other actions you would love them to take. Organize everything to the core and don’t think a detail is too insignificant to bother with it.

Promote your Snapchat takeover

You need to promote the takeover in every one of your social media platforms. You shouldn’t limit the promotion to Snapchat but cross-promote to other platforms constructing your promotional messages in a way that fits each platform. Your influencer must also help according to what you both planned and agreed upon.

Allow the influencer “takeover” Snapchat

Don’t restrict the influencer’s creativity by trying to tell them the things to say; you will only make the Snapchat takeover boring and uptight.  Allow the influencer’s personality to show during the takeover because that’s what endears his or her followers to them. You only have to give them copy points while reminding them of the brand’s story.

If you have done your job of choosing the perfect influencer, then you should sit back and watch the takeover trusting your good sense of judgment.

The only thing you should do on that day is to let the influencer have access to your account while you sit back to track essential metrics such as engagements and any other item you notice whether positive or negative. Use Snapchat insights to get reports on performance and find out how you can do better.

Repurpose your content

After a successful Snapchat takeover, you will want to let people know how it went by posting it on other platforms such as your YouTube channel, websites, or blogs. The content will help people who didn’t take part in the event see the highlights. It will also encourage people from other platforms to join your Snapchat so that they don’t get to miss any other Snapchat takeover.

Repurposing also has great SEO benefits since Google’s algorithm gets naturally attracted to video content.