NEW YORK – A Hired executive at ad:tech New York 2016 explained that Snapchat’s user base is quantitatively proven to be the most engaged out of all major platforms, meaning brands and retailers need to dive into the application to tap into a marketing goldmine.

Saba Sedighi, an audience development manager at Hired, provided a seminar at the conference that amounted to a cohesive primer for brands wanting to enter into the lucrative Snapchat advertising market. Included was a summary of the platform, its social landscape, and advice for brands in strategizing and creating content to host on the booming millennial-centric platform.

“As opposed to YouTube and Facebook, Snapchat has a mobile-only user base that is most engaged because of its immediacy and because you have to come back every day,” Ms. Sedighi said.

Gold mine
Ms. Sedighi, who “represents Snapchat on an unofficial basis,” provided statistics to any marketer dubious of claims to Snapchats ascendancy. Aside from the fact that people are now spending more time on Snapchat than Instagram— which Ms. Sedighi attributes to the former’s focus on video years before the latter managed to integrate the capability— she also made mention of the platform’s success with key advertising demographics.

Snapchat has 150 million daily active users, 400 million Snapchats are sent on the platform daily, it hosts 10 billion video views per day, and its content is consumed exclusively via mobile. And despite already being the second-most active social network aside from Facebook, the statistic that stood as the most important was an unsurprising figure: 61 percent of Snapchat’s users are in the 13-34 age demographic.

The above statistic truly explains the recent efficacy of advertising on Snapchat, and also cements the platform’s future marketing prospects: in the next two to five years, Snapchat’s uptake will grow in other demographics, specifically in 25-34 and above-35 year-olds, meaning that Snapchat is growing concurrently with its audience.

In terms of strategy, Ms. Sedighi suggests keeping three components of the platform in mind. Snapchats, which designates the perishable photo and video component, Communication— “Snapchat, at its core, is a communication platform”— and Content Creation, which involves the My Story feature, a 24-hour content hub that creates a compelling reason for users to come back daily.

And with the average human attention span apparently falling from 12 seconds in 2000 to just eight seconds a mere sixteen years later, Snapchat’s main concern was unequivocally voiced by Ms. Sedighi as “How do we create immediacy and frequency of content?”

Consumers will find the keys to DJ Khaled’s recent success to be predicated on his use of Snapchat, regardless of what he would tell you

Snapchat success
Brands’ responses should keep Snapchat’s priorities in mind, with a content strategy that involves four pillars: Creative, Fun, Informative and Engaging.

“This is a medium where the content is going to be fleeting, its only going to be ten seconds, so how are you going to make the greatest impact with your audience in the least amount of time?” Ms. Sedighi said.

The few of the most effective strategies were named, including flash sales; product launches, which has been leveraged successfully by Apple Music in the past; influencer marketing following the example of brands like Sephora and Birchbox, and, perhaps the most effective, cross promotion.

Snapchat’s Custom Geofilters allow brands to “market in the world we live in,” in the words of Gary Vaynerchuk of Vaynermedia. They are always changing, an effective brand marketing opportunity and provide an answer to Snapchat’s central marketing question: “What creative is my audience going to want to share?”

A few case studies illuminate Snapchat marketing success. Gatorade’s Super Bowl run produced an 8 percent jump in purchase intent, Shock Top’s beer ad garnered 12.5 million views and Taco Bell’s sponsored lens for Cinco de Mayo managed 224 million views in one day, generating 12.5 years worth of play and becoming the top campaign in Snapchat’s history.

And, perhaps most importantly, Snapchat’s favorite influencer DJ Khaled made an appearance in mentions of Snapchat’s ability to track reach. Mr. Billi was also the subject of an influencer campaign with T-Mobile ahead of the Billboard Music Awards.

“Time spent equals attention, equals engagement, equals more in-depth audiences, and that can convert to actual sales,” said Ms. Sedighi.