John Kapos is a Sydney chocolatier, known to thousands of Snapchat users around the world as Chocolate Johnny. He was an early adopter of Snapchat and he joins James and Sarah today to talk about how the platform has transformed his business.

Here are some key take-outs:

• Snapchat is an opportunity to tell stories using images or video. John enjoys the challenge of working out how to do that well, in a way that will amuse his followers/customers.
• John says the interactions with the audience on Snapchat are genuine — you can’t “buy followers”, for example. So you have to work hard for your followers by telling worthwhile stories, or offering something of value.

“My brand has become global through Snapchat and now I’m becoming a speaker around the world talking about Snapchat and how small businesses need to get onto it.” — John Kapos, Perfection Chocolates

• John promotes his Snap codes in his store. Customers want to be in his story. He’s created entire characters. People come from all over Australia and the world to visit his store because they want to be a part of it all.
• John uses humour in his stories to entertain his followers. He says everyone has creativity they can use — just be authentic. “Let your inner kid out,” he says.

“To be a good storyteller and to get this kind of participation you have to be really inclusive of people.” — Sarah

• Like any other platform, be consistent. You need to post to Snapchat regularly to build your audience.
• The return on investment? It will add money to your bottom line, but it will be slow. It’s brilliant for brand awareness — especially beyond your local area. It’s very good for running promotions.

“For me, it’s a lot better than putting an ad in the local rag, which is going to get no one coming in.” — John Kapos, Perfection Chocolates

Here are the links you might need

• Here is Perfection Chocolates’ website. His Snapchat handle is chocjohnny.

On My Desk

• Sarah recommended CoSchedule’s headline analyser tool. You’ll find it here.
• Here’s that article James mentioned, Stop Raising Awareness Already.

Have you heard the one about…

Recently “PR Warrior” Trevor Young joined James and Sarah to talk about the risks of publishing your content on third-party platforms. You can listen here.

And here’s a discussion with Jonathan Crossfield about the power of plain language.

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