Snapchat has a new partner on board its Discover content platform. The Wall Street Journal launched its own channel on the ephemeral messaging app’s Discover platform on January 6, 2016.
As the 19th publisher on Snapchat’s content discovery platform, The Wall Street Journal joins the ranks of other media brands like Vox, Comedy Central, and Tastemade, who are posting daily videos, graphics, and articles to Discover. The Wall Street Journal is the only publishing partner on Snapchat Discover with a heavy emphasis on business news. At first glance, this more adult-like focus might not seem like it fits with Snapchat’s largely teen-skewing user base of more than 100 million global Snapchatters per month. However, The Wall Street Journal has a specific type of Snapchat user in mind for its content.
“We’re obviously looking at this as a platform where we can explore delivering news to a new audience,” said WSJ’s audience development lead Carla Zanoni, as reported by Re/code. “The [Snapchat users] who are really aspirational and entrepreneurial are our next CEOs. They’re the folks who will have a very long-lasting relationship with the Journal, and we’re looking to meet them where they live today.”
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Despite The Wall Street Journal’s positive outlook on its partnership with Snapchat, real-life teens aren’t as excited for the new Discover content partner. Digiday interviewed a handful of millennials (some of whom were teenagers and some who were older) and discovered the majority of them simply don’t care to check out the The Wall Street Journal content, opting instead for brands like Vice. One interviewee in particular said he prefers to see the funny stuff his friends are sending him on Snapchat instead of having to read about often-depressing news reports.
“It’s just like negative stuff and, you know, I don’t want that to mess up my day or mess up my next snap,” the millennial explained. “I’m not trying to be sad when I’m trying to snap something funny.”
“If Snapchat keeps adding these, like, older-crowd options, I think it might die out,” another young Snapchat user said. “That’s pretty much it.”
Snapchat is not above getting rid of publishers which don’t seem to resonate with the app’s users. The messaging app already dropped Yahoo and Warner Music Group from its publishing partner roster back in July 2015. We’ll have to see if The Wall Street Journal makes the cut on Discover, or goes the way of Yahoo and WMG.
