“When you don’t answer your customers — you’re sending them a message.” Today we have to meet our audience on an increasingly diverse array of traditional and digital media touch points. None has garnered more headlines over the past year than Snapchat. Jed Record joined us in Iowa last fall for the Social Brand Forum. Since then, both Snapchat and the emerging story media format have evolved even more. We discussed all of this on this week’s On Brand podcast.

 About Jed Record

A consultant, speaker, and educator, Jed Record guides corporate teams through the quickly changing landscape of emerging marketing technologies. He teaches marketing at Meredith College’s School of Business. Jed’s clients include both start-ups and global brands such as Lenovo, eBay, Thomson Reuters and Quintiles Transnational. He has worked with Toyota, Capital One, SanDisk and others on influence marketing campaigns as well.

Episode Highlights

Instagram stories vs. Snapchat stories. One big thing that’s changed since last summer/fall has been the emergence of Instagram’s own story feature. Recently, Instagram’s daily story stats have overtaken Snapchat total user counts. Does this automatically spell trouble for Snapchat? Not necessarily. “It’s a major millennial media platform. It is a highly different audience. If this is your core audience, this is still where you should be.”

Why millennials still favor Snapchat. “Snap was the platform where their parents weren’t. It’s a very personal network.” Instagram stories may help preserve this feature. Just as parents and older demographics were starting to check out Snapchat, they had a new reason to stay on Instagram.

The ‘story’ is a new media format. Whether it’s Snapchat stories, Instagram stories, or Facebook’s new story feature, one thing is clear. The story is an emerging new media format, composed of real-time photos and videos further personalized with sketches, scribbles, and emojis. How will you tell your brand’s story?

“This is another form of communication but it’s not just another communications course.” Jed was very clear that though these are new formats and channels, we need to make sure that marketing curriculum doesn’t get lost teaching the tools. We need better instruction on distilling complex brand messaging into concise, ephemeral stories.

What brand has made Jed smile recently? “Applebee’s. Out of the blue, they make me smile by tweeting at me.” Jed also pointed to exceptional service from American Airlines and Toyota.

To learn more, check out Jed’s website and follow Jed on Twitter.

As We Wrap …

Before we go, I want to flip the microphone around to our community …

Recently Jasko Besic gave us a shout on Twitter for our episode featuring Brad Flowers. Thanks for listening, Jasko!

Did you hear something you liked on this episode or another? Do you have a question you’d like our guests to answer? Let me know on Twitter using the hashtag #OnBrandPodcast and you may just hear your thoughts here on the show.

Until next week, I’ll see you on the Internet!

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