Snapchat is primarily known as a solely friendship based social media platform, requiring, at least, one of the users to have a potential friend’s phone number to send a request. With the launch of the app’s new feature, Discover, that could be changing in a big way. What is possibly the most crucial feature to be added to date; Discover gives Snapchat their first big leap into the advertising realm and the ability to reach the ambitious goal of monetizing the platform faster than any other social media platform.
Partnering with companies like National Geographic, People Magazine, Warner music, Food network and CNN, to name a few. Discover gives each media company essentially a live 24 hour Snapchat story dedicated to their brand, sharing a collection of photos, videos, audio and webpage’s, developed by each Brand’s editorial team.
Expanding Discover’s marketing potential to the next level, individual media partners have also teamed up with select sponsors for their launch debuts. Companies like CNN teamed up with BMW North America for its channels launch, giving them sole sponsorship on select days within the launch time frame.
What’s truly fascinating about the Discover feature is Snapchat describes the feature as “not social media”. Unlike traditional social media that ranks content as important based on clicks, likes and shares; Snapchat describes Discover in the company’s recent blog, as being “built for creatives”. Relying instead on editors and artist to distribute what content they think is important. As described on the companies blog; “All too often, artists are forced to accommodate new technologies in order to distribute their work. This time we built the technology to serve the art”. While describing Discover as a way to “serve the arts” might be a stretch for the company, it will be interesting to see what Discover could be offering users in the future and if it will be what Snapchat needs to compete with social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
