22 millennials reveal what they really think about Snapchat Discover

Publish date: 2024-05-07

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Reuters/Lucy Nicholson

It's no surprise that millennials love Snapchat.

In August, Snapchat was ranked the third most popular social app among millennials, trailing only Facebook and Instagram.

Unsurprisingly, investors love it too: Snapchat raised $200 million from Alibaba in March, and it's also in talks to raise another $500 million at a $16 billion to $19 billion valuationwhich would bring Snapchat's total amount of money raised to more than $1 billion.

The company is also starting to look at monetization. In recent months, Snapchat rolled out its "Discover" media channelwhich lets news sites and magazines publish content and videos. Importantly for Snapchat, the company keeps about 40% of any ad revenue it sells for publishers on Discover. 

But while Discover has generated a lot of positive press for Snapchat, not all of Snapchat's users appear to be sold on it yet. We spoke to college kids and millennials between the ages of 17 to 25 and picked their brains about Snapchat and its Discover feature.  Although not a scientific survey, the comments from our 22 respondents— who are a mix of students,  adults who work in media, engineering, education, and hospitality, and recent-graduate job seekers — suggest that Snapchat's effort to become a media destination faces some skepticism among millennials. 

Below are some of the comments from the survey. 

Which parts of Snapchat do you use (sending photos, sending videos, chatting, Snapcash, Discover)?

What do you think about Snapchat's Discover feature?

How did you find out about Discover?

Which publishers are doing the coolest stuff with Discover? Whose content is the worst?

What kinds of Snapchat Discover stories, photos, and videos work the best?

Snapchat's Discover feature helps Snapchat make money. If Discover didn't exist or didn't end up working out, would you hypothetically be willing to pay for the Snapchat app, make in-app purchases, deal with banner advertising, etc. so that Snapchat could exist and make a profit? 

Snapchat declined to comment for this story or to provide data on how the new Discover feature is performing.

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