The One Thing Every Beauty School Should be Doing on Snapchat Right Now

As Snapchat continues to rise in popularity, I get many questions from schools about how they can be utilizing a platform that has the attention of so many people in their target market.

Technically, the first thing is to have a business Snapchat account. If you don’t have one, you’ll need to get one.

This should be as easy as downloading the app to a mobile phone and entering in your account details- name, phone number and email address. However, I have had some schools tell me this has been a challenge if the person setting-up the account already has a personal account on their phone. The workaround seems to be finding someone who doesn’t have Snapchat on their phone, having them activate the account, and then sending the login credentials to anyone else on staff who will be managing the account.

So after that, what’s the one thing you should be doing? Geofilters.

 What’s a Geofilter?

On Snapchat, users can interact with filters they put over their photos and post to their story. Geofilters are overlays that are available only within a certain geographic area. Here’s a brief video introduction from Snapchat.

What’s the Geofilter Goal?

Branding. No direct sales here, folks. This is all about awareness and exposure to your brand. As social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk put it, “…. a custom Snapchat geofilter is a branded impression on steroids.” He went on to say, “Too many of you are not excited about Snapchat filters because it’s not something that’s clickable and trackable to a transaction. This is classic branding and needs to be understood. Sometimes it’s about the long game; not immediate ROI.”

How do I use a Geofilter for my School?

Remember, the goal here is brand awareness. You need to get people to use the filter and share it to their story so not only are they interacting with your brand, but their friends and family can be exposed to your brand as well.

1. Use Your Marketing Army: It’s likely your students are Snapchat pros. Make sure to let them know that the geofilter is available and ask them to try it out. If you’ve created something worth engaging with, this should be an easy ask. Crowdsource ideas from them about what the next filter should be. You could hold a Snapchat filter contest, ask the students to submit their creative ideas for the filter (after giving them the guidelines above) and give small prizes to all the ideas that you choose to use.
2. Advertise Your Filter: Put up mirror clings on each station, a sign at the front desk, a poster on the front door and maybe even on the ceiling of the washing stations so salon clients also get the message that there’s a filter they should be using.
3. Offer a Salon Incentive: After you get your nails, makeup or hair done, what do you want to do? Snap a picture to show everyone else how great you look. Since people will be doing this anyway, are there incentives you can offer to get them to use your filter and add it to their story? Something like 10% off a service when they show your front desk it’s been added to their story?

Geofilters aren’t just for your school. You could use them at any recruiting or admissions event, like high school visits. You can also create them for public events like local parades or fairs where you will have a booth, opening the filter to an even larger portion of the community.

Ok, I’m Sold. How do I get a Custom Geofilter?

Ask Oozle to create one for you by clicking here and getting a quote. 

Things you’ll need to make a custom geofilter:

• Snapchat Account (See first paragraph.)
• Graphic Designer
• Budget

I cannot stress the importance of the second bullet, graphic design. If a geofilter doesn’t look good, it doesn’t matter how many people know about it, they won’t use it.

Design should be impactful, but not overbearing. People want to showcase their picture in a fun way, how can your design help them achieve that goal? The design shouldn’t take up more than one-third of the available space on a picture. Make sure to test your design over pictures to see if it works well.

Click here for Snapchat’s geofilter guidelines. You’ll need to follow these for your filter to be approved.

Once you have your .PNG file that is 1080px wide by 1920px high, under 300KB with a transparent background, you can submit the filter for approval. This can take a few days so plan accordingly if you’re using the filter for an event.

Go here and login using your business account to submit your filter: https://geofilters.snapchat.com/