About ten months ago I wrote about the launching of our Snapchat channel here at Coastal Carolina University. I explained my strategy and I also talked aloud about how shocked I was that more universities were not on Snapchat. Almost a year later, if institutions still aren’t on SC, they have severely missed the boat.

Follow us on Snapchat by searching “ccuchanticleers.”

I task my intern, Jada, with creating most of our Snapchat content. However, about three weeks ago I was logged in looking at our account. I was viewing the amount of users who looked at various snaps within our story. To my delight, all of these pieces of media had triple digit views. To know that roughly 150 people (mostly students) look at each image we send out via our Snapchat story is gratifying. It became very clear that we needed to leverage this service as much as possible. Thus, the creation of our latest #CCUSocialMedia event…

This Friday, we will hold SnapchaNt. On this day, we will shut down all of our other social media channels and communicate to our audience solely through Snapchat.

Our official SnapchaNt logo created by the wonderful Gwendolyn Washington.

We have a few goals:

1. We want to build our Snapchat following as much as possible. We already have 300+ followers*, I hope to double it by the end of Friday.

2. We want to continue to provide our #CCUSocialMedia audience with fun and creative ways to engage with us on Social. When have you ever heard of a university staging a Snapchat day? I am guessing never. We pride ourselves on being unique.

3. We want to generate fantastic user content! I am already excited for the snaps that our followers will send back to us. I will be screenshotting like crazy so I can create a gallery featuring the best of the best.

It will be fun! We will stage Snapchat giveaways throughout the day for students to cash in on. We will make our audience laugh. We will bolster our strong Snapchat channel even more. We will experiment a little. We will make one heck of a Snapchat story for all to enjoy.

Make sure to have fun with us on Snapchat this Friday.

Sure, we will alienate some traditional social media users who want nothing to do with Snapchat. But I know for a fact we will also convince others to join the service and follow us. The target market I am especially after, our students with accounts who just haven’t added us yet, will hopefully follow us in droves. It has actually already started to happen. After the announcement of SnapchaNt yesterday I spent five minutes Monday evening confirming new adds. I did the same this afternoon. Who knows what is awaiting our account right now.

In my opinion, having a strong Snapchat account is imperative. There is no faster way to reach students these days than through a simple Snap. Besides the practicality and necessity of having an active Snapchat account, it again just sends home the message to our social audience and specifically our students that we care about the social media experience we give them. Make sure to add us on Snapchat by searching “ccuchanticleers” and join us for some fun this Friday. Don’t Blink.

* I equate 300 Snapchat users to 3,000 Twitter users or 13,000 Facebook page likes.