Case Study - The Sun
Growing a Snapchat Channel
The Sun was one of the first major news outlets in the UK to join Snapchat Discover - an offering intended to give users more than just updates from their friends and disappearing messages. For the tabloid this was a huge opportunity to grab younger readers and turn them into loyal brand followers.
While rival Daily Mail relied on its reputation for pap pictures of celebrities, when I joined The Sun’s Snapchat team, our mission was very much focused on understanding our audience and what they wanted from us.
User-centred approach
By the time I assumed the role of Deputy Editor, the team was already using data in many ways to inform key content decisions. We utilised A/B testing to see what top story grabbed readers into the daily edition, altering pictures and headlines, curate the position in the edition for each story to minimise drop-off rates and maximise conversions.
When explaining our strategy to colleagues we would often say “we want readers to think we’re writing about the celebs because we’re super fans too.” It was this approach that prompted me to reach out more and more to our user base to make sure our content was reflecting their interests.
I started to create more polls, regularly getting over 300,000 votes, to tailor our content. In one such poll we found that over 80% of our readers felt lonely regularly and asked our writers to start seeking out opportunities to create more content that addressed this issue.
Speaking to users in their own language
It was important to respond to such a serious problem with the proper level of expertise but I was keen to ensure we still found a way to make it engaging for our readers and in keeping with our typical style. Instead of medical professionals from regulatory bodies for example, I orchestrated a reader Q&A with Dr Alex George, an A&E doctor who appeared on Love Island and also lost his brother to suicide on the health implications of loneliness and how to tackle it.
Over 750 readers emailed in their questions (which is particularly high considering that there is no way to directly do this from Snapchat, readers had to screenshot the email address and copy it out themselves) leading to the creation of some really impactful content, directly addressing user concerns.
Through this I was able to foster and maintain a positive working relationship with Dr Alex leading to even more collaborations on content around health and wellbeing such as Blue Monday.
Because we understood our users so well, we could create detailed long-form content that not only converted, but could even see average time spent rise upwards of 2 minutes.
Results
73% of audience was female - a completely new demographic for The Sun
Over 65% of readers were aged 13-24 - again, broadening the brand’s reader base
Increased subscribers by 600,000 from when I started at a time when many believed the app was failing as Kylie Jenner’s tweet saw the market price fall
Consistently achieved over 20% conversion rate, double the average of rivals on the platform
Regularly converted readers within the first three seconds of viewing a top snap
Outstanding achievements led to myself and The Sun’s Head of Snapchat presenting our strategy to Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel