The equation is as simple as it is logical: The more people follow your channel, the more attention it receives. And the more followers your account has, the greater your chances that your channel will continue to be recommended and new followers will become interested in it.
In the best case, a large number of followers develop their own dynamics and continue to snowball into further growth. Some of the most famous Snapchat accounts have established themselves according to this principle.
But influencers who have already established themselves also use the app, in addition to other social networks, and their Snapchat accounts are successful for self-marketing. Many YouTube stars or Instagram influencers also use Snapchat to help build their brand. Some companies have also been able to record a large number of positive reactions from their target group with their Snapchat content (e.g. beer manufacturer Heineken, television network HBO, and the National Hockey League or NHL). One notable example is the candy brand Sour Patch Kids, which used another social media personality, Logan Paul, to post a Snapchat ‘story’ to their account and draw in some of his own Snapchat followers as well as Vine users.
The followers of a brand’s Snapchat channel have a fundamental interest in the content posted there. Followers can also send messages to a brand’s channel (and the direct feedback capability of the users sometimes leads to valuable insights regarding the group’s interests), but the main focus here is less on having the same exchange between the users and the brand. Instead, it’s a predominately one-way communication in which the company provides content to followers. This is a different type of communication than typical Snapchat conversations between people who know each other privately and use the app to exchange information.
But it’s only possible to build a following for your marketing if users like the content that your account is posting and access it repeatedly. As soon as users lose interest in your channel and more or less ignore your content, even the biggest Snapchat following will bring you nothing: In this case, the channel content is barely perceived, which means that a majority of the work put into the entries literally fizzles out. Users remove channels from their contact list sooner or later once they are no longer interested in them. To make sure your followers enjoy following your account, and don’t decrease in numbers (or, in the best case, increase), the content of your Snapchat channel needs to address the target group.