Using Snapchat to Engage with Millennial Real Estate Buyers

Are you using Snapchat yet? The mobile app may have emerged as a bit of an enigma, but it has quickly transitioned into a staple of our daily mobile usage. With a current valuation of $15 billion and more financing pending, it appears that Snapchat's popularity will continue to grow. We've already discussed the value of marketing your real estate business with Instagram, so in this article we will talk about what Snapchat is and how you can use it to engage with millennial clients.

What is Snapchat?

Snapchat is a photo messaging app for iPhone and Android mobile devices. Users can take a picture or video and add text, drawings, and a variety of filters. They set a designated time limit, 1-10 seconds, and send to selected contacts from their list. Users can also set a "story" – a Snap that pins to their profile and is viewable for 24 hours after posting.

How is Snapchat Different from Instagram?

There are two fundamental differences between the photo apps Snapchat and Instagram – privacy and permanence.

Unless you set your profile to private (which as a marketer, you wouldn't), your Instagram photos are publicly accessible via a variety of platforms and search methods. For example, I can search #realestate on Instagram and discover millions of users who are using this hashtag. Snapchat has no such functionality. Two Snapchat users must add each other as contacts in order to send and receive snaps, making the app more personal.

Photos posted on Instagram will remain on your profile unless you choose to delete them, whereas Snapchat photos display for a maximum of 10 seconds (for 24 hours, in the case of a snap story) before becoming permanently inaccessible. The user may choose to save their snaps, but this will only save it to their local device. If the receiver uses the screenshot function on their phone, or chooses to replay a snap, the sender is notified.