Publishers have already been wildly enthusiastic about Snapchat as they try to capitalize on messaging apps which recognition with young people today. But now Kik is catching on with all the current addition of big-name publishers BuzzFeed, The Washington Post and NBC News.Kik’s pitch is the fact that it’s in contrast to other messaging solutions in that customers opt in to conversations with brands and publishers, and they can’t push content to individuals unless the user has initiated a conversation with them (together with the exception that publishers may perhaps send 1 general blast per week to their existing user base). Kik claims 200 million customers, 70 percent of whom are amongst the ages of 13 and 25. (ComScore’s figures are far lower, at 16.four million uniques, of which 42 % are aged 18-24.)
You can find 60 publishers and brands such as 16 Handles and Teva utilizing the platform, and Kik says its opt-in nature has led to higher user-engagement rates with them. Ten million of its 200 million users have opted in to communicate with those brands, with an average of 9.4 messages sent per conversation.
Because the user’s opted in, you’re going to find out 75 to 80 % of those messages opened and study, said Devrin Carlson-Smith, head of strategic development for Kik.
Publishers have embraced the practice of publishing straight to platforms like Facebook and Twitter. But the practice may be the topic of some controversy, due to the fact the publisher has restricted capability to earn money off that distribution. With Kik, however, when a publisher sends a user a story hyperlink, the publisher can opt to have customers study the write-up inside the Kik ecosystem or on its own mobile web page. But either way, the publisher controls the capability to sell advertisements against its content material. Kik provides publishers data like number of customers and how many of their messages are study and shared.
