Exclusive: NBC News' TODAY uses Snapchat to announce summer concert series
Gone are the days where a clever use of Twitter or Facebook is enough for a social TV strategy. In the highly competitive world of the morning news shows in the US any opportunity to get ahead and use creativity with social platforms can make a big difference. Recently NBC News' Today exclusively announced their summer concert series via Snapchat.
Found Remote (The Drum's new dedicated section for social TV) interviewed Ashley Parrish, Executive Producer for Today Digital and Anthony Quintano, Social Media Manager for Today about the campaign including a detailed look at the success metrics.
TODAY’s Snapchat account started in February 2015 and before the concert series announcement it had 1,789 followers. After the TODAY Summer Concert Series announcement on Snapchat, they gained a total of 11,000 new followers and 1,400 views in 24 hours.
Found Remote: Why was this announced on Snapchat?
Anthony Quintano: We wanted to try something newer than the traditional on-air announcement and give the social audience a chance to get some content in advance of our tv audience.
Ashley Parrish: Our mobile audience now outweighs our desktop audience, and 94 per cent of Today’s mobile traffic is from exclusive mobile visitors (those who don’t visit via any other platform). Announcing the concert series on Snapchat was a terrific way for us to honor our mobile users by serving them content on their platform of choice.
FR: How long has Today been working with Snapchat and what's the company like? Do they have a team in NYC now comparable to Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook's media team?
AQ: Today Show has been on Snapchat for three months. Working closely with the social platforms that we (and our users) are on is extremely important to us. We haven't partnered with the Snapchat team yet but we look forward a forging a strong relationship with them in the future.
FR: Was it successful? Any metrics you can share?
AQ: Since we are new to the platform and haven¹t done much there yet we don¹t have anything to compare it to. We are really happy with the numbers and can now justify doing more things like this on Snapchat.
AP: It's always terrific to see users response, especially when we're diving into uncharted territory for us . Within minutes of the on-air mention our followers spiked, then when we started posting the lineup on Snapchat we quickly gained views and followers. The snaps continued to gain traction throughout the day.
FR: What else will TODAY be doing on Snapchat?
AQ: We plan on trying to focus on more 'just for Snapchat' content with our guests and events during the show. We try to make the content more personal with celebrity guests and our anchors speaking directly to the Snapchat audience. AP: We also want to hear from our audience - we're in this together so we'll want to know from the Snapchat audience what they want to see from Today.
FR: Who runs the Snapchat account and what are the challenges with the platform?
AQ: I am currently the only one running the Today Show Snapchat account. The main challenge has been that it¹s another platform we have to create original content for and time can be limited with our guests/anchors, so to capture content for our main platforms then have to do something additional for Snapchat can make it difficult for us.
FR: Anything else?
AQ: We are still very much in experiment mode with Snapchat and will adapt our strategy based on what our audience wants to see from us. Look for more creativity around the Today Show account.
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