Snap signs PinkNews as Snapchat Discover’s first LGBT partner

Pride march in New York
City.
Getty

• Snap has signed up British website PinkNews as its
  first LGBT partner on Snapchat Discover.
• PinkNews will go live on Wednesday on Snapchat and aims
  to appeal to a young audience which is testing the boundaries
  of their sexuality.
• PinkNews CEO Benjamin Cohen told Business Insider said
  diversifying away from Facebook is important — both in terms of
  readership and revenue.
• The website has also received a near-$350,000 grant
  from Google.

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Snap has signed up its first LGBT partner for Snapchat Discover —
the UK-based website PinkNews.

PinkNews will launch on Wednesday for Snapchat’s 191 million
daily users, as the social networking app broadens its range of
publishing partners and makes Discover more appealing to
different kinds of people.

While Snapchat Discover has served up LGBT content in the past,
it has not had a dedicated channel. PinkNews has around 5 million
monthly unique readers, with a big audience in both the UK and
US.

Rami Saad, who helps look after content partnerships at Snap,
said: “We’re always working to ensure content on Snapchat is as
diverse as our community. Access to a variety of perspectives is
important, and we know that Snapchatters will resonate with
PinkNews.”

Benjamin Cohen, the CEO and editor-in-chief of PinkNews, said the
website has been working to get on Snapchat Discover since 2015.
It wants to connect to a new, younger generation of readers
testing the boundaries of their sexuality. He also wants to
diversify PinkNews’ audience away from Facebook.

“We’ve seen our Facebook traffic decline, in common with a lot of
publishers,” Cohen told Business Insider. “And we wanted to work
with a social platform that is actually willing to pay
publishers. We’re doing a revenue share [with Snap], we’re going
to make money from creating this content.”

He added: “It’s also great, frankly, to be dealing with humans.
Some other platforms, it’s really hard to speak to an individual.
Discover is a curated platform, where their editorial team is
taking an interest and contributing to your thoughts about what’s
going to work.”

Screenshots from the PinkNews Snapchat Discover
channel.
PinkNews

Cohen said creating Snapchat stories has been a completely
different discipline for staff and the company is currently
recruiting to help with the Discover channel and broader growth.
Four people are currently dedicated to Snapchat content. 

The channel will update twice a week with thought-provoking
stories, which will aim to reach beyond the LGBT community, such
as the story of an American who survived gay conversion therapy.
It will be “mid-Atlantic” in tone, according to Cohen, eschewing
esoteric stories in the UK and US in favour of broad, globally
relevant content.

“It’s a very different editorial process. You need to invest in
after-effects and graphic designers. It’s been a real learning
curve,” Cohen said, adding that the channel will update daily
once more staff are in place.

PinkNews is also one of a number of publishers to receive a
Google Digital News Innovation Fund grant, Google announced on Tuesday.
The €299,338 (£266,966/$349,855) of funding will be used to build
an “advocacy platform,” which will connect PinkNews readers
with LGBT causes and charities around the world.