The Sun to join Snapchat Discover as revamped site nears launch
The Sun will join the growing throng of publishers on Snapchat Discover as part of a renewed push to ensure its content is distributed as widely as possible.
News UK’s daily tabloid will make its bow on the messaging app later this year when its articles will appear in the form of Snapchat Stories. After 24 hours, the stories will disappear and are replaced with fresh content.
The ephemeral nature of the app is deemed a good fit for The Sun’s content, which is being pushed through more channels than ever before in its 52-year history. “The future of news brands is going to be a variety of revenue streams and it’s not going to be the cover price anymore,” said editor Tony Gallagher at the Newsworks Shift conference yesterday (1 March).
The move will see The Sun’s content compete against the likes of the Daily Mail, Vice and Mashable in what is fast becoming a crowded space. In just over a year since it launched, Snapchat Discover has gone from 11 to around 20 publishers, though many have said it’s a hard environment to stand out.
“A lot of time has gone into Snapchat and we think that the irreverence that we bring to the party will be a perfect fit for Snapchat Discover,” added Gallagher.
However, Snapchat isn’t the red top’s key social network. “For us the most important social network is Facebook,” said Gallagher. “There’s evidence that people come via the social network and spend a great length of time reading our stores. We’re spending a lot of time thinking about Facebook Instant Articles.”
Getting people to share its content and in turn those that aren’t regular readers to view its articles forms the crux of The Sun’s attempt to widen its online footprint. Consequently, a new site is “a couple of months away”, revealed Gallagher.
This week, Snapchat revealed that it currently has 8 million video views each day, the equivalent of Facebook's daily figures.