What The Economist learned by posting on Snapchat

Matteo Moschella, a social media fellow at The Economist, writes about the publication’s experience of posting content on Snapchat, which began one year ago.

Moschella writes, “The most popular edition so far, ‘How Well Do You Know Your Presidents?’, which coincided with Donald Trump’s inauguration, reached more readers in a week than Economist.com does in a month. Overall, launching on Snapchat has resulted in ‘the biggest step-change in the audience of The Economist since 1843,’ says Tom Standage, deputy editor and head of digital strategy.

“The edition pegged to Trump’s inauguration embodied much of what The Economist’s Snapchat team hopes to achieve, says Lucy Rohr, the paper’s Snapchat editor. One aim is to be what Ms Rohr calls a ‘trusted filter’ that provides analysis and context around a news event. The edition on the inauguration focused not so much on Trump, but on the institution of the presidency and on previous holders of the office.

“Choosing a topic for the weekly edition requires careful consideration as Ms Rohr has to be sure that The Economist has enough analysis on a subject to be able to fill an edition — and smartly. ‘Plenty of what we do can’t be readily translated into a ‘Snappy’ format. We have to take the time to really think about each edition and each snap and how to do it best,’ says Ms Rohr.”

Read more here.