Oh, Snapchat. The elusive milestone in technological communication that has most people aloof. We get everyone's doing it, but can’t quite grasp how. Is it a labyrinth? Is it an app? Sorta, it’s Snapchat.

Let’s begin.

In its ancient form, Snapchat was a simple social media platform. Child’s play. It allowed you to connect with fellow snap-chattering friends through pictures or videos in real time. You would snap a quick pic (or record a quick vid) with a lifespan of no longer than 10 seconds. Next you’d customize with a brief text and or draw on the screen with some aesthetically pleasing red ink. Lastly, you would select the length of your snaps life, then it’s off! Never to be seen again. Gone forever.

That Snapchat is no more. We now live in a world of stories, geotags, and dog filters. Not to mention the ever intimidating ‘Memories’ it has concocted.

So how do we maneuver through the excess of creative possibility that is Snapchat? We break it down.

Stories

Honestly, they’re a gift. Have you ever wondered what your friends are doing anytime of the day? Check their story. Scared someone has ditched your plans to hang with another? Check their story. Trying to avoid someone and want to scope out their whereabouts? Have no fear, stories are here!

In layman terms, a Snapchat story is a photo or video you post to a feed of your very own. It's visible for a 24-hour cycle to you and your Snapchat peers. All your friends. To see it swipe from right to left on any tab until you see a screen tab labeled "Stories." Your friends' stories will appear under "Recent Updates.” All your friends’ stories.

Usually composed of entrancing selfies, or even more mystifying dinner plates, stories are an outlet to tell people what you’re doing at all times.

As an extension of the Stories feature, Snapchat has created Discover. To cover a wide range of interests, Snapchat has partnered with CNN, Vice, Yahoo News, Comedy Central, National Geographic, Daily Mail, ESPN, Food Network, and Cosmopolitan. Discover allows Snapchat users to view news in a similar format to Stories. After 24 hours, the stories disappear and are replaced with fresh content.

But wait, there’s more!

“Introducing, Memories! You can use Memories to create new Stories from Snaps you’ve taken, or even combine different stories into a longer narrative,” says Snapchat.

Not only can you show people what you’re doing in real time, but now you can upload beach pics from last weekend’s spur of the moment Miami trip in attempt to grab that one special snapper’s attention.

And yes. We see you, Instagram. Your version of “Stories”, while captivating, still has a curious on its implementation into the ad world. We’ll dive in and report back later. Now, back to Snap…

Decoration

You’ll never have lack of visual enhancements on Snapchat. Here's a concise list of your options: filters, face filters, geotags, stickers, weather, date, time, speed it up, slow it down, flip it back and reverse it.

Some of these are self-explanatory. Others are not, in particular: geotags. A geotag is an electronic tag that assigns a geographical location to a photograph or video, a posting on a social media website, etc. Simple, easy, decorative. To receive them all you have to do is enable your location!

Communication

Ah yes, the art of endorsement
. Because Snapchat has such an intimate relationship with its users, endorsements tend to go a long way. From Arnold Schwarzenegger's political support of John Kasich, to Kylie Jenner's tireless, promotional lip kit snaps, Snapchat advertisement knows no bounds. But, considering this superhuman app reaches 41% of 18-34 year-olds on any given day, why should it?

It is personal; it makes the user feel connected. So when someone hears or sees something on Snapchat, they listen. This app isn't Twitter, and most certainty is not Facebook. It's not overwhelmed with shameless plugs, so the Snapchat sphere pays attention when something is brought to its attention.

It's no wonder Ms. Jenner's lip kit consistently sells out in under a minute; she is one of the world's most followed people on Snapchat.

Go King K.

The Chat of Snapchat.
 At the core, it is the actual ability to chat. Either through quick text exchanges, voice- call, or video chat, you can communicate virtually anyway you’d like.

This section is simple enough.

Congratulations, the in’s and out’s of Snapchat have been revealed for all our non-millennial and gen z-ers. Now, we patiently await the next update in hopes it doesn’t throw its loyal patrons for a complete 180.

Is SEO important?

Search engine optimization (SEO). You've heard of this buzzword, but you might not know what it means or why it's important for your business. And for some people, even the mere phrase sounds like technical mumbo jumbo that’s too complicated to dissect.

So you think to yourself, “Why is SEO important? Word of mouth is the best form of advertisement and my business already has a solid reputation. If it's not broken, don't fix it...right?” Wrong.

Or perhaps you’re a little familiar. You've been told it has something to do with keywords and getting your website on the first page of Google. While ranking for keywords and increasing your search engine visibility are key for developing a strong online presence, SEO is about much more. In fact, here's a secret that some marketing agencies don't want you to know. Ready for it? Here it goes....

No one can guarantee you the # 1 ranking on Google.

In fact, anyone who guarantees this promise “in X amount of days” is indeed implementing unethical marketing tactics that could hurt your business. SEO is a holistic digital marketing process that takes time. It requires constant planning, execution, maintenance and monitoring. But when implemented properly it will increase search traffic, referral traffic, reputation and brand visibility.

And you better believe that Google, Yahoo and Bing constantly change their algorithms to penalize websites who (knowingly or unknowingly) use shortcuts to outsmart the process. That's right; search engines are notorious for banning websites without any notice. Working with professionals indeed has its advantages.

Whether you’re familiar with SEO or not, or whether your business is a new startup company or large corporation, here are 4 reasons why every business model should not exclude SEO from their marketing infrastructure:

It is critical for success.

Ever heard of “out of sight, out of mind.” It's true! You soon forget people or things that are no longer present. This is not only true for consumers but for search bots as well. Without SEO a website can be invisible to search engines. It’s like having a great commercial that never airs.

If a website is lacking quality content, effective link building, keyword strategy, or proper URL and HTML structure (just to name a few), search engines will ignore your site and it won't generate traffic. More traffic = higher visibility. The higher your visibility, the higher your returns, and higher returns generate direct revenue.

Your competitors could be drinking opportunity that could be yours.

Thanks to the Internet, marketers are able to reach customers at every stage of the buying process: anytime and anywhere. But the playing field is not level.

With SEO, the longer you take to get into the game, the more competitive the keywords become and the harder it is to rank for them. Therefore each time your competitors show up for a product or service that you offer, and your website does not show up, you’re missing the opportunity to sell what your customers want, when they want it.

Search is Growing.

The phrase “just Google it” is perhaps one our favorite ways to explain why SEO is important for online visibility. That’s because consumers use the Internet to look up everything: from information about a product, reviews, location, competitor choices, etc.

In addition to the rising amount of search queries, more and more people are becoming comfortable with purchasing online and customer mobilization is rapidly growing. Therefore SEO gives business owners access to a rapidly expanding market.

But search engine results pages (SERPs) are not the only places consumers are hanging out. The growing popularity of social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest are also great and additional avenues to generate traffic back to websites.

As search expands, gaining “online real estate” becomes more important.

Lack of SEO could hurt other marketing and advertising efforts.

Even with a solid traditional marketing strategy like word-of-mouth, the Internet is the most important source of content at all phases- before, during and after referrals. In fact, recent studies from Google reveal the Internet is both the leading spark of WOM conversations and the #1 resource utilized to take action after a conversation.

Search impacts more than 15% of all WOM conversations. And Google directly informs 146 million brand conversations a day. Therefore lack of brand visibility could decrease credibility or your ability to connect with potential clients.

Walker & Associates is a full-service marketing, advertising, public relations and digital agency in Memphis, TN. We're looking for some hot shot college students who're ready to dive head first into the exhilarating world of marketing and advertising, helping the agency with its own brand and supporting our account services team with their work.

The perfect interns are friendly, can play nice with others, don't need to be micro-managed to get the job done, are ready to learn, can stay organized enough to multi-task different assignments without panicking or punching a hole through their MacBooks, always shows initiative and desires to be a part of a team of (relatively) cool and talented people.

Two needs

1. Graphic Design Intern
2. Writing Intern

Deal Breakers

Must currently be seeking a bachelor's degree

Major should be in journalism, advertising, public relations, graphic design, marketing or in a related field

Able to work 15-20 hours/week during normal business hours

Please send resumes to ceciliaw@walker-assoc.com