Snapchat is the latest social media platform that millennials have flocked too, and the company has been adding more and more users each day. For all of the social media platforms out there, video and engagement have been the biggest target in these past few years. Mostly in an effort to compete with YouTube, who has been the king of video for about a decade now. Additionally, advertising (which is the main source of income for many social media platforms) is higher on videos than standard ads that you’ll see in your feed.
In early 2015, Snapchat launched their Discover page. This page has a slew of media companies listed, and they have stories each day. Which appear above the stories from people you follow on Snapchat. For example, ESPN currently has highlights and stories from last night’s Oklahoma City Thunder blowout win over the Golden State Warriors. You are greeted with a video, and if you swipe up, you can catch up on the story, to see what you may have missed. There are about 21 media companies listed in Discover right now (at launch there were 23). All of which have paid an undisclosed amount of money to be listed there. These companies have also stated that they have seen some huge growth after the launch of Snapchat’s Discover. Which is exactly what Snapchat wants to hear.
Now it’s being rumored that Snapchat is going to be redesigning that Discover page in a few weeks. According to “a source familiar with the matter”, we may see this new update on June 7th. The company is already showing off the update to their media partners that are part of Discover currently. It’s said that Snapchat is aiming to go for a more tile-based look, similar to Instagram. The thinking process behind this, is to allow companies more capabilities to stand out from the competition in the Discover page. Which is going to be important if Snapchat expands Discover to more companies and advertisers.
Snapchat is currently battling it out with Instagram, Facebook and YouTube for video views. The company sees about 10 billion video views per day. While Facebook is around 8 billion (with over 100 million hours of video consumed per day). Instagram hasn’t stated any numbers, but they are seeing a pretty big increase in video views, around 40% since October 2015. Being able to keep pace with the likes of Facebook and Instagram is quite the feat, especially considering the fact that Snapchat is the newest platform in that group.