Why Snapchat is a Valuable Political and Advocacy Campaign Tool

by The Campaign Workshop

snapchat for advocacy campaigns

Snapchat: a Political & Advocacy Campaign Tool

Snapchat has created a new way to have conversations—from consuming content and messages to creating and broadcasting it. Through Snap, conversations are held in video and picture form rather than through texts, messages, posts, or speech; making Snapchat not only a creative way to get your political and advocacy campaign's message out but a new way to communicate it to a specific group of people. In just the past year, Snapchat’s daily views and users have grown by over 400%. Per day, the average number of video or picture views can be anywhere over 10 billion (surpassing Facebook’s 8 billion daily video views) by the 150 million users (surpassing Twitter by 10 million users).

Although Snap filters are the main way to reach a lot of individuals, it will specifically help engage a younger user group. Millennials account for 7 out of 10 Snapchat users, and around 60% of all users are between 18-34 years old. This makes Snap a unique digital tool to reach a growing and important demographic.

Snapchat for an Advocacy Campaign

One of the best aspects of Snapchat is the ability to engage a younger demographic of people to jumpstart their involvement in the advocacy campaigns your organization is conducting. Snapchat is easy, it’s accessible, and most importantly, it’s relatable. Think of it as the digital yard sign. Creating a Snapchat account and live-snapping a protest, a conference, or taking pictures of a recent volunteer event and sharing them through a direct communication method is a unique way to reach a new base of people and keep them engaged. Further, geo-fencing a legislative district or state capitol with a unique filter that showcases or highlights your issue can be an effective way to spread your message to key targets.

Snapchat for Political Campaigns

As campaigns explore more mediums to further their campaign message and objectives, Snapchat has become an increasingly popular tool. The 2016 election is a prime example of using Snapchat’s popularity with a certain demographic. Throughout the Republican and Democratic primaries, Snap users could use a special filter with vote totals that updated as they were being counted, in real-time. Snapchat also had special filters to help engage young voters and help get out the vote before election day. When significant political events are happening, like the Democratic or Republican National Conventions, debates, and even State of the Unions, special snap filters are created for each event. Further, a few campaigns have strategically targeted attendees of an opposition party’s event by geofencing their filters to the event’s location.

Create Your Own Political Filters for your Political or Advocacy Campaign

In February 2016, Snapchat built a feature to make it easier for users to create their own unique filters. From businesses to weddings to an advocacy campaign, anyone can now can design and implement their filter in any region for any amount of time. Of course, the larger the area and the longer the time, the more it will cost to implement a filter. You can personalize pre-made filters, which have various templates to choose from, or design your own. The latter might be a little difficult if you are not a graphic designer, but thankfully there are many gifted artists who can turn your vision into a visually-appealing filter.

Here at The Campaign Workshop, We have successfully implemented one-of-a-kind, creative, and unique Snap filters for different organizations, and we look forward to creating more filters in the future.

Want to learn more about Snapchat as a Political or Advocacy Campaign Tool? Check out our ebook, The Ultimate Guide to Snapchat, here!