Recently at a conference the sponsoring company (Discovery Education) posted some fun snap chat filters. This lead to the "How did you do that?" question from many of the teachers in attendance. Lindsey Hopkins, the DE employee who created the filters on the above pictures, lead an unconference class on how she created them. It was very good!
The discussion in the session also focused on how to use them in schools and there were a lot of good ideas - Spirit Week - Homecoming - Prom - Back to School Nights - Professional Development Training or Seminars. People also make them for events like weddings and parties.
NOTE - These aren't the crazy filters with rainbows coming out of your mouth and giant eyes these are more like branding and location filters.
I went ahead and made a test filter for a meeting with my supervisor to discuss possibly using it at one of our summer institutes (and to see how easy or hard it was to set up). It takes about 2 days to be approved. They have two types of geofilters - one for "community" (free for cities, universities, a local landmark, or another public location but no brand logos allowed) and then one that is labeled "on demand". That is a paid one but it is inexpensive. For my meeting I chose the "on demand" filter and I made it live in the location I wanted for 2 hours for $5. You can schedule them out in advance for a specific time, specific hours, and of course a specific location.
Lindsey had some trial and errors and shared with us some things she learned -
- Do a set time period. You don't want to have to pay for a filter when no one is in a school at night.
- Only select the area that people are going to be using the filter (cost is also based on the size of the area you select).
- Using light colors for the lettering works better then the dark colors
I asked about programs for setting up the filters and she used Photoshop (Snapchat has some templates you can download that are compatible with Photoshop). I am used to PicMonkey (and it is FREE) so I followed this great YouTube tutorial for how to set up a snapchat filter in PicMonkey.
The process was easy (I completed it in under a half hour). I think it would help if you had an art student or teacher design the filter. I have no graphic experience and it shows in my rather lame filter attempt (I will post it once it goes live).
The steps are as follows:
1. Make the filter on some editing software (complete guidelines are on their website)
2. Go to their website and select the type of filter (free or paid)
3. Upload your filter
4. Choose the date and time for your filter
5. Select the area you want your filter to appear (I just typed in the address and used their tool to highlight the building - Lindsey suggested do it slightly outside the boarders).
6. Pay or submit based on what filter you selected
Once done you will get an email confirmation that they received and are reviewing it. A teacher in the session was concerned that a "creative" student might try and post a nasty filter but we felt it would get vetted during this review process. I got my response that it was approved and will go live within 24 hours of submitting.
I definitely think it is a fun way to promote your schools and take advantage of students and parents using Snap Chat.
UPDATE:
UPDATE:
These were the filters I made for the meeting with my supervisor. While she liked the idea we see where using a white background for the wording wasn't necessary the best color (see pictures above). We also had a problem getting the filters to come up on her personal phone. It worked fine on my work phone, her work phone, and another persons work phone (all had location services on and were connected to the buildings wifi). We tried her personal phone and another person's personal phone, both had location services turned on (in general and for the app) but they were connected to their data plan (Verizon in both cases). In theory, the filter should have showed up for them. I am not sure why it didn't. I have an email into the Snapchat folks to find out.
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