In spring 2016, IBM launched its official corporate Snapchat account. What makes this project special is the approach we took, which is a first-of-its-kind for IBM and potentially for any other B2B brand: we chose to make the account available to any employee or team upon request. Our main objectives were to increase brand awareness, engage employees, and generate content that can be scaled across other platforms.
We developed an official submission guide and shot list template that are required for all requests. Employees/teams must fill out the basis of their request and provide a draft of snaps that will be included in their story. Employees must also certify that they have read and understand IBM's Social Brand Guidelines in order to use the account. We launched our strategy and the documents through an internal blog post inviting employees to submit ideas. Our corporate social team maintains the central calendar, the account login credentials and manages requests. We cross-promote stories across other social platforms in order to drive users to Snapchat. In one case, we worked with an influencer to do a takeover of our channel in order to drive awareness.
Our first Snapchat story in April 2016 garnered approximately 8,000 total views. One of our most recent Snapchat stories generated more than 21,000 views. We have an average completion rate of 73%. Our account was recently mentioned in an article touting best practices for B2B brands on Snapchat: http://www.toprankblog.com/2016/07/snapchat-for-b2b/
