A millennial explores Snapchat’s Discover (Day 1)
It’s been almost a year since Snapchat unveiled their “Discover” feature, and since its launch, brands (news and non-news) have partnered with Snapchat to be featured on their Discover tab.
Initially, Discover kinda sucked because it used to be a purple dot in the corner of your Snapchat feed that no one really clicked on. Now, Discover is more prominent, Snapchat’s user base continues to grow and more brands are jumping on the Snapchat wagon in an effort to capture millennials’ (and younger generations) attention while also distributing their content in different ways unique to the popular platform.
As one of these millennials, who views my friends’ Snapchat stories on a daily basis, I figured I’d delve into a few of the Discover channels and see what unique content some of these organizations are bringing to the table.
So, this week I’m challenging myself to look at a small mix of news/non-news Discover channels to see if any interesting patterns emerge. Each time I go through their channels, I’ll write my observations and note some things that I saw that I liked, and potential takeaways that perhaps every organization should be implementing in their Snapchat stories.
The channels I selected for this week were VICE, National Geographic, CNN, Daily Mail, Buzzfeed and Mashable. Here’s some stuff that caught this millennial’s attention:
- Large fonts
I liked how some platforms teased some of their videos/stories with large fonts (I saw VICE, CNN, Buzzfeed do this a lot).
Their teases were also short or in a listicle format, so I swiped up for more knowing it wouldn’t take too long to consume. Using this type of font made it easy to gauge the content and didn’t require a lot of time for me to decide on whether or not I’d swipe up for more or right to go to the next slide.
2. Multiple choice options or boxes to snap and share
I liked how some of the platforms (VICE, Buzzfeed) gave me options to snap, modify and share funny or interesting pictures to my friends. Great way to distribute individual snaps and have your brand spread from someone who may not open the Discover channels often.
3. Prompts on where to swipe/scroll
I knew that you’d have options to swipe up for expanded content, but I still appreciated the reminders every so often, especially if it was a graphic or still image that I didn’t know had more details under it.
4. Custom graphics!
I really loved some of the Daily Mail graphics where they put photos on top (with the Ken Burns effect!), had custom borders overlay the photos and used shadows on a quote or headline to make it pop out. I’m kicking myself for not really going deep with graphic design back in college, but I guess it’s never too late to pick it back up?
5. Quizzes
National Geographic kind of stunned me with their quick Snapchat quiz which asked which country had the fastest Internet speed. Swiping up would give you the answer after watching a short video. I really liked that experience because you could, theoretically, screenshot the question and send it to a friend to see what their answer would be (an maybe tell them to find out the answer by visiting Nat Geo’s Snapchat if you were so inclined).
6. Cycling facts and taking a screen shot to capture one to share
National Geographic also had this cool slide where they were cycling facts about a crocodile and you could screenshot one to share. Pretty cool idea that had me on the slide for a while as I tried to snap all the facts.
7. Telling me when to expect an update
I think a slide, at some point within a Snapchat Discover story, should remind followers when they can expect new content to be added into the story. I now know that National Geographic will give some sort of update by 7 a.m. PST. Or that VICE will update theirs at 2 p.m. PST. This visual reminder can go a long way in getting people to remember when to check back either during the same day, or the next day.
Things *everyone* needs to work on:
1. Branding and logos
I think it’s a good idea for every single slide to have some sort of brand logo on them so that whenever someone screenshots to share with their friends, that snap will have something distinct that tells the person which brand it’s from.
EDIT: I shared a Discover screenshot to a few friends and it DID include a logo. Not sure if that happens to EVERY snap within a Discover story but that’s really cool. However, not everyone may tap and hold to share directly, some may screenshot and send directly to friends through a Snapchat message.
Also, sometimes people screenshot part of a story and won’t share until later and they’ll forget where they took it from (and judging by my edit above, if the screenshot is not shared directly from a Discover channel, a logo may not appear). If say, Mashable, had their logo on every single slide people would see the name and know which Snapchat it came from, regardless on if they took a screenshot or shared directly.
2. Promoting talent
I think if you’re going to include talent in a Discover slide, make sure they have their twitter or Snapchat/Vine/Instagram/whatever handle somewhere on the slide so I can connect and follow them on another platform. I saw Sam Sheffer in some of the slides where he and a colleague ranked the best 10 Snapchat faces (which by the way, is an awesome idea. Keep that up).
However, I had no idea who his colleague was and wished they promoted their handles so people could follow them.
3. Cater to the muted phone
I think brands need to know that most people have their phones on silent or really low volume as to not draw attention to themselves wherever they are. Background music is cool and all but if I’m already listening to music on my phone (or maybe in a work meeting…) I don’t want any audio erupting from my phone into my ears (or out loud).
I’d make sure all graphics and social videos are subtitled (if a video) or can be understood if the music is turned off. It may make for tiny fonts, but I think it would be something worth testing out.
4. It’s all about the screenshot and share
I think one thing brands should want their followers to do is to screenshot their content and disperse it across other platforms so that their content grows organically thanks to their followers. It’s easy to do that with fun graphics that people can interact/modify before sharing, so I hope that more brands give their followers opportunities to snap and edit before they share it across their networks. (Also, imagine if you’d someday be able to screen record your phone. Lots of GIF/quick social video potential there)
Four questions I need to find out at some point
1. How many horizontal slides did each org have? How many secondary, slides did they have in total?
2. How often do they update their Snapchat channels in a day if they don’t tell you in their Discover story?
3. Could I still understand some of the snaps if my phone was on mute?
4. How do brands effectively use UGC to improve their experience and engage with their followers? Is there a way to feature select responses? Brands should experiment with this if they’re not already doing so.
