New Snapchat “Discover” Shows Huge Promise for Social
Bob Hutchins
AI Advisor, on-demand CMO delivering scalable outcomes. Evidence-based marketing and GTM strategies. Human flourishing in technology and culture. PhD Candidate -generative AI. EdTech. Org Culture Change. Author. Speaker
Last October, Snapchat created a door for advertisers. Now, just a few months later, that door is slowly starting to open through the new Snapchat Discover platform. The developers describe the platform on their blog, writing, “Snapchat Discover is a new way to explore Stories from different editorial teams. It’s the result of collaboration with world-class leaders in media to build a storytelling format that puts the narrative first. This is not social media.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbOMqA2AOIk
Discover prioritizes art and narrative over marketing, which – ultimately – will make for great marketing.
Snapchat Marketing: How Discover Works
With the new Discover platform, currently available to a select few advertisers, brands create brief full-screen photos and videos, which are called “Stories.” Stories are accessible on-demand by Snapchat users via a small purple dot in the at the upper-right corner of the screen. ESPN might feature a SportsCenter Top 10 Play; National Geographic might run deep-sea footage; Yahoo is currently showing news bytes from Katie Couric.
One of the truly beautiful aspects of Snapchat Discover is how fresh it is. After 24 hours, all the stories are wiped away and new ones take their place, giving users something to come back to day after day.
Why Social Media Marketing With Snapchat Will Be Big
As journalist Kevin Roose writes, “From speaking to people at several other news organizations, I can tell you secondhand that the numbers, at least for the initial launch period, were enormous. We’re talking millions of views per day, per publisher.”
I would bet that the majority of people reading this blog post are not Snapchat users themselves (71 percent of users are under 25, many in their teens). But don’t let personal preferences impact your appreciation for this platform. In 2014, Snapchat was the fastest growing platform in the mobile sector – growth of 56 percent.
To put things in perspective, consider that in November 2013 – just 15 months ago – Snapchat was receiving more photos per day than Facebook. That’s over 400 million Snaps a day.
When Will Discover Influence My Snapchat Marketing?
If you’re not a brand the size of Target… when can you expect to get in on this feature? Truth be told, it could be a long wait. It’s been 16 long months since Instagram first released ads, but we haven’t seen any indication that the capability will open up to smaller advertisers. Likewise, I predict Snapchat will spend at least a year beta testing “Discover” with large-scale advertisers and huge population samples before releasing any local marketing features. Still, the lessons of style offered by Snapchat Discover are worth learning, as they will impact advertising across all platforms in 2015.
Would You Advertise on Snapchat?
Does social media marketing with Snapchat sound interesting to you? Would you want to use Discover? Why or why not?
🎥 Video Strategist | 📈 Building Your Brand With Video
9yInserting for sure. I'll be keeping my eye out to see how this goes.
AI Advisor, on-demand CMO delivering scalable outcomes. Evidence-based marketing and GTM strategies. Human flourishing in technology and culture. PhD Candidate -generative AI. EdTech. Org Culture Change. Author. Speaker
9yGreat insight Elizabeth! Thanks!
Marketing Communications Manager at Autodesk | Career Coach
9yInteresting article though I have a different prediction with how this will play out. Users of Snapchat expect to go on the app and watch a snap from a friend for a few seconds. It's easy for us to ignore Discover because it's on a whole other page, which can be difficult to navigate to. I've asked my friends if they've seen the new update (which I didn't even know was called "Discover") and none of them knew what I was referring to. On the other hand, I still see a lot of success coming out of the Snapchat Stories of different events like the current Westminster Dog Show because it's on the same page as our personal Contacts' Stories. Accounts set up for certain celebrities or companies, like the recent styledotcom account, is a good idea as well because it's the users' choice to add them to their Contacts. Great marketing idea, but like all social media platforms we'll have to wait it out and see how consumers react to this big change.
Designer & illustrator
9yInteresting to see the differentiation clearly made between social media and a marketing channel... watching that space.