Marketing Thursday with Molly? Not the greatest ring to it, but we can let it slide for the week to get you this amazing snapchat usage.
This past weekend University of Arkansas hosted their first tournament, which we read about yesterday. What we didn’t read about, was how Madison Hayden, University of Arkansas team president, tried to set their tourney apart from others. A few weeks* before her first tournament, she went on Snapchat and designed a filter. “It took maybe 15-20 minutes, not long at all, I was just picky” according to Madison. The tournament theme was 80’s, so she went online, picked out a design from their template list, and personalized it in font and color for the 1st annual Hog Wild Tournament at Bullneck Lake.
What was so great about it? People taking pictures share the #NCWSASPIRIT with their friends outside the sport. Even my friends who know I’m a skier, often have no idea what I really do at tournaments. Having a snap filter to engage with is one more reason to pull out the phone and share that snap, raising awareness of our sport. Having fun “props” like a filter or a “photo booth” can be fun ways to get people to share more #lifeonthewater. At Midwest Winter Conferences, we have a bright pink #TeamMidwest backdrop at the banquet, and let me tell ya, that’s the backdrop to about 200 people’s Facebook profile picture by Monday.
A filter costs money, but in the middle-of-nowhere ski lakes we tend to spend our time on, the rates are much lower. You can always play around with Snap to only have the filter on during competing hours, or in certain areas of the lake where people will be watching to lower the cost.
A limitation of the filter: it works best on wifi. Luckily, Madison was able to use her hot spot and in the age of unlimited data plans, it seems more feasible. The Arkansas president also noted that when they were having issues using the filter, she called and Snap Inc. gladly extended the filter dimensions to wider coverage.
Another fun and FREE use of Snapchat is their new “Our Story” feature, which can be determined by friends or location. This is an even simpler activation to tell the tournament story, through a shared lens. It’s simple. Go to the “Stories” page of Snapchat and click the plus sign at the top right corner. From there, you are given the option to choose a story by Group (all friends), Geo (location), or Private (only select friends). Upon choosing Geo, you can then set the location parameters, choose who can add, and who can view the story, and then there is an option to automatically save to “Memories”. I recommend chosing this option, so you have plenty of saved photos to share with @theNCWSA 🙂
Test it out! You can design your own filter for this upcoming weekend*, or learn about all the new snap innovations!
*Snap filters take 24hrs to be approved
Design your own geofilter on your own, or online!
To create a a location story, hit the + in the upper right corner, then Geo Story. From there you can geo-fence the area so only those within the fence can post/view, depending on the parameters you set. Don’t forget to save and share!
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