Snapchat Looks to Reinvigorate Discover With New Feature

Snapchat is enhancing its Discover component by allowing users to send snaps with their own edits, a move that makes Discover more interactive and may help drive traffic to the feature.

The Discover element consists of content from premium publishers, including CNN, Vice, and National Geographic. With the update, users can tap a Discover photo or video, add their own drawings and text-based messages, and then send the snap to select friends. Those snaps will include a purple “Sent via Discover” bar, which will direct recipients back to Discover.

The move should encourage Millennials to share content and enhance engagement on Discover, which has reportedly seen viewership decline an average of 30 percent to 50 percent since its launch on January 27, according to Mary Sue Somyak, strategic social media analyst at agency SOCIALDEVIANT.

“The Discover feature is not inherently social, which is the main purpose of Snapchat. In that sense the feature may not appeal to the younger, more socially active demographic and could be a reason for the decrease in Discover traffic,” she says. “With the addition of a sharing option, this may reinvigorate Discover if the content motivates users to add their own commentary with friends. Users may enjoy adding annotations and emojis to Discover stories and it could be a crucial update as arrangements with media partners are set to expire in June.”

The update comes hot on the heels of another Snapchat product released yesterday, which enables users to find friends on the platform by scanning each other’s QR codes, just like the Chinese messaging app WeChat.