Snapchat launches Public Profiles for brands

Another shot has been fired in the short-form video wars as Snapchat announced Public Profiles for Business, giving brands a free place to showcase and publish their Snap content.

Since its inception, Snapchat has been a predominantly pay-to-play marketing opportunity, and with organic reach beginning to clam up on Instagram, Snap’s latest move will no doubt entice brands needing to reach Gen Z.

Snapchat For Business

“In addition to Public Profiles for Creators, Shows and Snapchatters, we are excited to extend a permanent home to businesses on Snapchat with the launch of Public Profiles! Public Profiles give brands the ability to have an organic presence on Snapchat, and house all of their unique Snapchat content in one discoverable place.”

As soon as you’ve set up your business profile, it’ll be discoverable through Search, Lens Explorer, Discover and mentions.

Snapchat now has 500 million monthly users, making it a place that brands and marketers should start to pay more attention to. With 280 million daily, mainly young, users, Public Profiles should offer a valuable means to boost engagement, brand recognition and eventually, revenue. The platform launched this in beta in July 2020, and provides a clear space for companies within the app.

Growth has been going in one direction for a while now – all the more reason to jump on board this gravy train.

All of Snapchat’s best bits for business

Snapchat For Business

“With Public Profiles, you can connect with your customers organically by highlighting useful and engaging content, showcase existing Lens AR Experiences, and share shoppable products directly within the Snapchat app – all while delivering insights for your business.”

Brands will be able to make the most of public stories, AR Lenses, Highlights and Native Store in the following ways:

• AR Lenses: This is the most immersive your brand could get on Snapchat. With them, you’ll be able to engage with all levels of the platform and create incredibly alluring content that can show off products and eventually develop into something that provides a full wearable tool. They will be discoverable in Search and Explorer.
• Public stories: This will give your audience an insight into your companies’ daily activities and help drive a deeper connection between brand and customer.
• Native store: This is where you can link your Shopify store to your Profile so customers can browse, try-on and purchase products without leaving the app. This is only available to US accounts for now.
• Highlights: Permanently display your Stories, Snaps and videos to give new Snapchatters a quick overview of your brand and what it’s about.

The ability to use Lens AR Experiences and share shoppable products is an exciting move for social commerce operations. Businesses will be able to access mobile and web management tools through Business Manager, which will help you collaborate, manage and review content and analytics.

Three steps to create an account

You can create an account in three steps:

1. Log into Business Manager using all your business account information and hit ‘public profiles’. If you’re not currently advertising with Snapchat, here’s how to create a business account.
2. Create your public profile by setting up your username, or connecting with an existing username. Next, add any business information that needs to be on your profile and hit the update profile button.
3. Start adding content to your public profile! Fill it up with Lenses, Stories and Highlights.

Marketers should see the benefits

Marketers will be able to showcase their brands to nearly half a billion engaged users, and will be able to complete sales within the app. While this will be a handy revenue boost to Snapchat, it’ll also help convince companies to create content for Snap as well as TikTok and Reels.

It’ll also give brands a place to house their own content and reach out to new audiences without the help of influencers.