It started out as a channel that allowed teens and young adults to share messages that disappeared, without a trace. Then it started to attract a wider audience. Now it’s become the hottest new thing in social media — even my mother is on Snapchat, since her grandkids stopped updating Facebook.
This year’s Snapchat growth and increased popularity can be attributed in part to their new focus on delivering content. In January they rolled out Snapchat Discover, a way for stories to be delivered by different editorial teams, including CNN, Comedy Central, Cosmopolitan, People, and Food Network. This gives the channel an income source and brands the ability to partner with the content providers to reach new audiences.
Shortly after Snapchat Discover was rolled out, Madonna premiered a new music video on the social channel. This was something that made marketers sit up and take notice. If Madonna was using Snapchat to premier her video, then maybe it really was more than a fad.
Now Sofia Vergara is launching “Vergaraland” over the summer, a six-episode reality series that’s being co-produced by Fusion and will feature her son Manolo González Vergara. This brings a new program to Snapchat Discover, and markets directly to the Latino audience that tends to overindex in social media usage.
I’m on Snapchat (ID sandrafdzh) and can see some good uses for it for brands: behind the scenes, realtime photos and video, a raw look at what goes into producing an event or a product, etc. I haven’t deciphered it yet, but I’m working on it.
The next step is to figure out best practices for the channel. I’m working on that too.
* * *
Additional reading:
- Introducing Discover | Snapchat
- Snapchat Launches Discovery | Techcrunch
- Madonna just premiered a new music video on Snapchat | The Verge
- Sofia Vergara To Star In Her Own Reality Show, Exclusively On Snapchat | Latino Voices
- Sofia Vergara, Fusion Team on Series About Actress to Debut on Snapchat | Variety
- Sofia Vergara’s Latest Series Will Launch On… Snapchat? | Forbes
- Photo courtesy of “Yahoo News/ABCNews Pre-White House Correspondents’ Dinner Reception Pre-Party” (creative commons 2.0) https://www.flickr.com/photos/yodelanecdotal/14110653291/
Leave a Reply