Dive Brief:

• Like YouTube before it, Snapchat is becoming a valuable enough marketing platform to demand expert input.
• Brands and publishers are utilizing Snapchat experts, either through dedicated in-house teams or outside agencies.
• Recently Snapshot changed its “Discover” portal, replacing Yahoo and Warner Music with BuzzFeed and iHeartRadio provide more appeal for millennials.

Dive Insight:

Snapchat has fully arrived as a major marketing platform, and the evidence is the fact there is a market for Snapchat experts. Publishers such as CNN, Daily Mail and National Geographic have staff dedicated to the social media sharing platform. In fact, CNN has a group that works on different social media platforms, but Snapchat is the only destination with its own team. New firm Narativ, a 2014 alum of the Disney Accelerator program, has 120 creators in its network including Snapchat stars. And it claims five billion monthly Snapchat views for its clients using Narativ’s brand management and technology tools services.

“Snapchat is a really, really bespoke platform for us,” Samantha Barry, head of social news for CNN, told Digiday. “It’s not cut-and-paste. It’s more of a magazine edition.”

One reason companies are turning to Snapchat experts is the platform is a fairly unique publishing experience with vertical video, distinct interface, highly targeted demographic and its content management system.