Shortly after this success, he moved to New York and collaborated with
a bunch of Viners (from the Vine app) to try to help them grow on
Snapchat. Eventually, Carmichael built up around 150,000 views a snap and
was getting shout-outs from influencers like Jerome Jarre, King Bach, and
Vitaly. The conversion rates on those shoutouts were about 10 percent,
which is unheard of—usually you only convert around 1 to 2
percent of
viewers.
Brands started reaching out to him. Carmichael went from eating ramen
noodles to making $10,000 a story for brands like Disney, Universal,
Lionsgate, and Fox. He quickly learned that vertical videos (the kind
featured on Snapchat and Instagram Stories) were going to be the next
medium kids were addicted to. And it was obvious to him that brands had
no idea how to use the vertical video medium. A lot of brands were trying
to apply the traditional advertising ideology to a platform that just doesn’t
buy into it. When millennials see a traditional commercial, they’re instantly
turned off, and since most Snapchat users are between thirteen and thirty-
four
years old, they immediately smell the inauthenticity. Brands came to
Snapchat trying to apply traditional methodologies to a platform that’s
super intimate, where you can’t lie. You can’t
say things like, “Buy this
toothpaste ’cause it will make your life happier.” If you lie or try to sell
something, you lose your audience. You must be authentic and tell the truth.
Also, on vertical videos your facial expressions are very close up—you’re
right in your audience’s face, so if the person speaking is not genuinely in
love with the featured product, it’s obvious and can work against the brand.
Carmichael notes that a lot of brands also make the mistake of trying to
create high-end, polished content for Snapchat, which is not what kids like
—they don’t relate to that. They relate to messy drawings and mistakes.
Choi adds that people don’t think about their snaps in advance. They see
something, pull out the phone, document, and send; that’s the nature of the
platform.
Choi brings up Mike Khoury, who gets two hundred thousand views on
a single snap on Snapchat, which is a lot for someone who doesn’t have a
prominent YouTube channel or previous Vine following.
He creates
comedic content where he rants about things right in the moment. He
constantly makes mistakes in his speech, but it works because it’s funny and
authentic. That’s what people on this platform like; it’s what gets them to
share the Snapchat story.
Kids want to see a real human being, flaws and all. Be authentic, real,
and vulnerable with the audience.
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