Snapchat is raiding top competitors for talent, and charging top dollar for ads
This wraps the last week before the 2016 election — more on that Monday. For now though, here are a few of the better stories from this week that you may have missed.
Let’s say, hypothetically, Donald Trump loses the election
There has been much speculation that Trump, should he lose on Tuesday, might consider launching a broadcast network. But even a streaming, so-called over-the-top, service would have costs that the Republican candidate needs to think about. Tech expenditures alone would come to more than $12.2 million annually. And that’s not even including other overhead and content-related expenses. In fact, if Trump were to spend a tenth of what Fox News spends annually ($828 million), he’d still need to get 692,000 subscribers to pay $10 per month just to break even.
Snapchat’s fishing expedition
Snapchat is on a hiring spree as it prepares for an IPO, raiding everyone from Google and Facebook to old media for talent. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen hiring at this speed or breadth of this support services been paralleled before,” said Maikel O’Hanlon of Horizon Media. Snapchat’s hiring trajectory comes as its business gets more complicated and it faces new competition from other social platforms like Instagram, however.
And Snapchat’s big pitch
Snapchat is also trying hard to woo advertisers. It’s hiring ad sales talent, launched an API and integrated third-party measurement firms. And as a recent pitch deck shows, it’s emphasizing ways its ads can surprise and delight and help advertisers tell stories in the app. The ads aren’t cheap, though: one new feature is available to advertisers who spend $750,000 in a quarter.
Now live on Facebook: Revenue
Publishers are getting creative about how to make money from Facebook Live. Facebook officially opened its doors to branded content this April, letting media owners publish advertorials, either co-created with brands or sponsored by them, to their verified Facebook pages. There’s also the option to run short ad breaks within Facebook Live videos, though this is just running with a handful of test publishers. Now some publishers, like Business Insider and News UK, are starting to see dollar signs.
Publishers’ latest petri dish: Email
Five years ago, email newsletters were an afterthought for publishers. Today, they are a key source of traffic and a laboratory where publishers look for new ways to super-serve what are often its most engaged pockets of readers. Publishers like Thrillist and The Washington Post maintain dozens of newsletters, and the signals their subscribers send can shift the focus of entire writing teams in a matter of weeks.
It’s getting chilly out there for print publishers
Up next
Check back in Monday for stories on the ways media companies are trying to monetize Instagram and what publishers have planned for Election Day.
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