The Mario Blog

08.01.2018—12am    Post #8122
Snapchat and The Telegraph: a success story

Snapchat captures the attention of the young audience every publishing house craves for. For the UK”s The Telegraph, it is mission accomplished, with younger audiences exposed to its journalism.

Reporting from Argentina and Brazil in the next 10 days.

 

I admit that I like Snapchat. And I am fond of Snapchat Discover, which hosts newspaper content to introduce it to its young audience.

It is visual. It is snappy and one gets to see how the most serious stories (try the North Korean nuclear saga) can be made to look appetizing. The youngsters who come to Snapchat have short attention spans and their eyeballs land on the visual. Snapchat knows it.

I have no data on how successful Snapchat has been for The New York Times, or any of the many classic, quality newspapers that have made their stories accessible to the young audience there.

But now, I am delighted to read the effect that Snapchat has had for The Telegraph. 

It joined Snapchat in 2017, posting some of its stories with animated, visual storytelling to attract those precious younger readers–the under 25 bracket. The Telegraph was the first quality UK news source to join Snapchat Discover, which it did during the 2017 UK general election.

The Telegraph approached this challenged the right way: it formed a team of designers who could could create a unique visual language that appealed to the young, but kept The Telegraph’s distinctive brand and design aesthetic at is heart.

A dedicated Snapchat Discover editorial team was put in place to pick and tailor stories for the new audience. From the copy to the story sells and designs, everything was reworked with the Snapchat audience in mind.

The result?

Now The Telegraph can boast of its 313,000 subscribers and counting.

“….we’re now looking ahead to developing the channel further, with a raft of new format and content ideas in the pipeline. The project has proven that The Telegraph brand has impact across age demographics.”

Bravo to The Telegraph’s team. I would welcome news from other news organizations that have had this type of impact with their content on Snapchat Discover.

 

TheMarioClassroom

Several of you asking if these videos were still available. Check them out!

Center of Visual Impact

https://youtu.be/w1vrUXS_DDY

Text size

https://youtu.be/zZSrQNPnRq0

Typography essentials

https://youtu.be/3LxIHQHBv1E

 

Mario’s Speaking Engagements

 

 

August 2, Digital House (Facebook workshop), Buenos Aires

October 6, 20, 27–King’s College, New York City

The Basics of Visual Journalism seminars

October 25, Eidos Media Keynote, New York City

Garcia Media: Over 25 years at your service

TheMarioBlog post #2879

The Mario Blog