Snapchat. It’s THE platform right now that brands *want* to figure out, but just can’t.

I mean, 100 million active daily users draws a lot of attention, right?

So, why can’t brands figure out Snapchat?

For the same reason they couldn’t figure out Twitter initially–it’s not *designed* for brands (at least, most of Snapchat’s not designed for brands).

Brands are clumsy.

Brands are boring (most of the time–sorry folks :).

And brands (typically) aren’t all that fun and/or funny.

And finally, brands are, well, brands. They’re not humans. They’re not your friends.

These are the reasons most younger folks use Snapchat.

Yet, there are a few brands that are seeing success on Snapchat. And, the million dollar question is this: How are they doing it?

Two words:

Influencer outreach.

Sure, some brands are just flat-out picking up Snapchat faster than others (Taco Bell comes to mind). But, a number of others are turning to influencers to get their start on the closed social network.

Let’s take a look at a few recent examples:

Sour Patch Kids & Paul Logan

What, you’ve never heard of Vine star Paul Logan? Well, apparently, SPK’s target audience has because the confectioner used him to drive 120,000 new Snapchat followers, 6.8M Snapchat impressions, and more than 1,900 Twitter mentions. Not too bad for a first-time Snapchat brand. Here’s a glimpse at the Snapchat Stories series Logan helped SPK create.

Calvin Klein

CK took a slightly different approach to boosting its engagement on Snapchat. It partnered with a series of pseudo-celebrities around the globe to create content (#Selfies in a “Self Exploration Lab”) and share via various social media platforms (including Snapchat). The results: 15% engagement rate on Snapchat and 16.5M impressions on Twitter.

McDonalds

Like CK, McD’s relied on its celebrity influencers to curry favor on Snapchat. And, they went big by enlisting the help of LeBron James, who created a short “video story” to promote the release of McD’s new Bacon Clubhouse burger. No results found for this campaign.