Sky News hails success of Snap partnership

Sky News’ and social media platform Snap’s partnership shows the success of traditional broadcast media on social platforms, according to Christina Nicolotti Squires, director of content at Sky News.

Speaking at the Connected TV World Summit in London, Squires said that whilst consumer behaviour is ever changing Sky News’ strategy is exploring digital distribution avenues.

She said that when looking at publishing their content on social platforms there were three core benefits, of which at least two must be fulfilled: to bring new audiences, showcase original journalism and make money.

Sky News’ breaking stories covering Brexit have been especially popular with audiences on Snapchat and building on core values around live and original content with breaking news editions with a strategy for taking premium content to find new audiences.

Despite catering for a lower ager demographic, Rami Saad, head of International content partnerships at Snap, said that content which reached over 30 million users daily must be conveyed with the brand in mind. Commenting on the rise of vertical video formats, he said: “Don’t change the content, change the way you tell the story.”

Whilst Sky News reaches more than 7 million users monthly on Snapchat, Nicolotti said she was surprised at how well some of the more traditional stories have done and the success with Brexit across SNAP audiences has spurred on the delivery of more mainstream news stories over the platform.

In increasing revenue up 18-19% has shown the monetisation capabilities of partnership models, and Nicolotti added that whilst Sky News were not reliant on digital revenue streams, they should like to see it grow.