Snapchat and Kolsquare: bringing the individuality and authenticity of Snapchat creators to influencer marketing

Creator Collabs Campaigns enables API partners like Kolsquare — the first European influencer marketing software to partner with Snapchat — to integrate Snap data into its platform, offering brands new opportunities to work with thousands of Snap Stars  (verified Snapchat creators) and reach new audiences. 

Under the partnership, brands will be able to access the combined power of Snapchat and Kolsquare data to optimize their influencer marketing campaigns on the popular visual messaging platform. 

The move to encourage greater collaboration between brands Snap Stars capitalizes on the platform’s recent success in attracting big-name creators back to the platform with a lucrative ad revenue sharing program. 

“As part of our product strategy, we’ve been focusing heavily on developing enormous technological capabilities in Augmented Reality for our Lens creators. But in the meantime, brands have been watching all these video creators developing their presence on Snapchat and have been increasingly demanding more tools to facilitate collaborations,” Snap Inc. Product Marketing Manager Philippe Tanant tells Kolsquare. 

Snapchat: it’s different here

Launched in 2011, Snapchat’s key differentiator and strength lies the role it carved out for the camera in social media messaging. Over the years, it pioneered video formats like Stories — since copied by all of its competitors — and Augmented Reality technologies, in particular. 

Hit AR features like the Crying lens, which has now been viewed 10 billion times, have helped Snapchat develop a reputation for content which is fun and engaging on a level not seen on competitor platforms. 

“People come to Snapchat to enhance their relationships with their friends, their family and the world. Together with all the technological tools like Lenses, Bitmojis, stories, and our generative AI feature Dreams, the camera is the real vector of self-expression for Snapchatters,” comments Tanant. 

“It’s a platform that goes against the traditional codes of social media to foster real relationships. We don’t support the race for likes and followers. The result is that it creates a happy environment where, according to a study conducted by Alter Agents, 91% of Snapchatters feel happy when using the app, because there is not that comparison between users. In this environment, brands can have a real influence.” 

Snapchat’s other key differentiator is its audience: in more than 25 countries, the platform reaches 75% of 13-34 year-olds, and has a very unique audience of 750m monthly active users globally. In France alone, Snapchat has 27m monthly active users, and according to Global Web Index data, 32% of Snapchatters aged 16-64 do not use Instagram daily and 52% of them do not use TikTok daily. 

New opportunities abound for Influencer Marketers on Snapchat

Kolsquare’s integration of Snapchat offers brands and agencies new avenues for working with content creators guaranteed to reach new audiences with innovative, creative content. 

Snap Stars are vetted by Snapchat for authenticity, audience engagement and size, cultural relevance, and content that falls within the platform’s community guidelines. Snap Stars also use their accounts primarily to regularly create stories for their audience. 

Snapchat’s focus on stories is a boon for influencer marketers who might otherwise be feeling the pinch of an audience that is increasingly wary of influencers’ motivations and seeking greater levels of authenticity. The platform also offers a Story Replies feature that allows creators to engage with their subscribers and have meaningful conversations around the Stories they post, by re-posting their community replies in the  form of a sticker on their Public Stories.

“Replies create a dialogue in the stories and creators love it,” comments Tanant. “We’re a visual messaging app, and replies enable creators and brands to have a real discussion with their audience. It makes these shared moments more authentic.”    

And while Stories is Snapchat’s calling card, it shouldn’t be forgotten that the platform’s video offer — Spotlight — is used by an impressive 350m monthly users. Spotlight takes the best Snapchat video content (accounts posting to Spotlight must have at least 1,000 followers and have gathered at least 10,000 views in the calendar month to be eligible) and curates it for users. 

“Spotlight enables creators to reach both their subscribers, but also to grow their communities on the platform,” comments Tanant.

Snapchat’s Creator Collabs Campaigns sees early success

Snapchat’s Tanant has one key piece of advice for brands mulling the idea of launching influencer marketing on Snapchat: launch your brand account and get to know the platform first. 

“We’ve launched a lot of solutions for brands to create an organic presence on Snapchat. It’s really the basis for brands to learn how to create content that gels with the platform and to get to grips with the platform’s philosophy,” he says. 

Global brands like Pepsi have been quick to capitalize on the opportunity of partnering with Snap Stars and creating engaging AR features to support their campaigns. A recent campaign designed to support the launch of Pepsi’s new brand tagline in France — Encore Meilleur Avec Pepsi (Even Better With Pepsi) — the brand leveraged the Snap Star Collab Studio program to select and partner with three prominent content creators. 

As well as creating bespoke content for Pepsi, the Snap Stars challenged their communities to a mini-game using the Pepsi AR lens. Super fun, the AR game invites Snapchatters to catch Pepsi cans and meal ingredients to win points.

“With this campaign, Snapchat demonstrates its ability to offer creative campaigns to global advertisers, not only thanks to its French audience of over 27 million monthly active users, but also to the variety of content creators on the platform. These find an engaged audience to follow them: 60% of Snapchatters are subscribers and follow the content of Snap Stars creators,” comments Snapchat Head of CPG Charles Dalibot.

As on other platforms, creator content that incorporates a paid element is delivering strong performance on Snapchat. Snapchat research shows that ads which leverage creator content deliver view rates that are twice as high as traditional ads, and a click rate that is 24% higher than traditional ads. 

Interested in learning more about how you can use influencer marketing to reach  Snapchat’s young, exclusive audience? Book a demo with a Kolsquare expert now.