Arkansan Cyrene Quiamco Is A Snapchat Celebrity

Elicia Dover with our content partner, KATV Ch. 7 News, reports:

An Arkansan has found a way to gain money and notoriety from using the smart phone app Snapchat.

Cyrene Quiamco has a day job at Verizon Wireless, but when her day is done, she opens an app called Snapchat and starts making money on the side.

For millennials, everything is instant and fleeting and that’s why Snapchat finds itself fitting perfectly into their lifestyles.

Users take pictures or video and draw on that image on the screen. The 10 second “snap” disappears soon after viewing and longer Snapchat stories stick around for only 24 hours.

Snapchat is a digital platform that two-fifths of all 18 year olds in the U.S. use multiple times a day and 71% of users on Snapchat are between the ages of 13 and 35, which is a gold mine for advertisers.

“It’s really popular with the 13-to-25 years old and I think that it’s really hard and special to get attention, and Snapchat is doing that and so for advertisers it’s a really cool platform,” said Quiamco.

Quiamco has a huge following on Snapchat. Users from all over the world anxiously await what she’ll be creating next. Everything from selfies – drawing herself somewhere else – and even games – creating works of art people actively want to engage with.

“It’s real hardcore viewers that actually want to see your snap and not just scroll,” she said.

Her Snapchat drawings even caught the eye of Kevin Jonas. A selfie she drew with him went viral after he sent it out to his fans. It launched Cyrene to Snapchat stardom.

“I saw it on his social media and a lot of people kept adding me and I was like where are these adds coming from. And that’s how I got connected and made more friends and then also got connected to brands after that,” she said.

Now companies are paying her to Snapchat for their brands. She’s worked with everyone from Budweiser to Burger King and even movies like Ice Age and the Hunger Games.

Kevin Jonas is now using her talents for projects.

“We’ve just had some fun creating some art. She’s done some art about me and I’ve done a snap about her,” said Jonas.

Companies like Disney are even sending her to Disneyland just so she can Snapchat about it. She says she had no idea this app would lead her on so many adventures.

“I would have never guessed. It’s great, I just do what I do and people enjoy it and I get paid for it,” she said.

She makes big bucks for her Snapchat campaigns: some companies paying her upwards of $10,000 dollars for her Snapchats. Her snaps advertise directly to young people who get to engage with a real person having fun with a brand.

“I think it gives more of a realness to it and not like I’m selling this to you,” she said.

While it looks like she’s making big bucks for simply playing on her smart phone, Jonas says Cyrene is leading the way for this new wave of direct marketing.

“She is one of those girls who is creating a career off a medium that most people wish they could do. The fact she can draw that way in Snapchat and create amazing pieces of art alongside great pieces of content, is really tricky and she’s nailing it,” Jonas said.

To see more of Cyrene’s Snapchats, go to this site.

Dover appeared on Talk Business & Politics this week to discuss the story, which you can view below.