Older media brands are succeeding in attracting Snapchat’s millennial users to view their content, made specifically for the social network, says research from Future Scape.
The analyst says that its survey of 1,117 US Snapchat users conducted for Variety magazine will reassure major media owners that their brands and content continue to be relevant to teen and young adult audiences on the social media network.
Indeed the Snapchat Report found that American millennials view well-established media brands on the Snapchat Discover distribution platform rather than media which targets their generation.
Millennials’ most popular news publisher was BuzzFeed, which leads the rankings with 54% of respondents saying they usually view its Discover stories. Apart from this, the most-viewed media brands are well-known TV networks and magazines: Comedy Central (44%), iHeartRadio (32%) and Food Network (31%), followed by ESPN (27%), People (25%), Cosmopolitan (24%), CNN (24%) and National Geographic (20%).
Analysing the trends revealed in the report, Future Scape says that success in this sphere often requires a dedicated editorial team, and notes that some publishers have recruited up to a dozen staff who focus purely on Snapchat. It also observes that by contrast, some early Discover partners chose only to repurpose existing content. It cites Warner Music Group failing with only a dedicated music channel which resulted in the WMG Discover channel being dropped after the initial six-month deal with Snapchat ended.