Last week, Snap paid Kim Kardashian and Kris Jenner ( left) to launch the #KindnessChallenge on Spotlight, soliciting videos from users showing how they spread joy by surprising a loved one. It’s now running 3-5 challenges per week. that offers users the chance to win cash prizes ($25,000 or more) for creating top-performing Spotlight Snaps using specific lenses, sounds or topics. For now, it’s testing out interstitial ads in the section while still “maintaining the experience,” Corrao Clanon said.Īs part of the UGC push, Snap recently launched Spotlight Challenges for Snapchatters in the U.S. The investment in attracting creators comes before Snap has started to directly monetize Spotlight content. In addition, more than 65% of Spotlight submissions use one of Snapchat’s creative tools or one of its augmented reality Lenses. Today, according to the company, Spotlight creators post three times as often to the section than they were when it launched a year ago. By changing the payout model, “We’ve seen a shift from people posting to Spotlight in search of a hit to people who are establishing an identity and building their business on Snapchat,” he said. When Snap launched with the promise of paying $1 million per day to Spotlight creators, one of the goals was to jumpstart the UGC section: “We had an empty feed to populate,” said Corrao Clanon. “We wanted to build a personality and identity for Spotlight,” he said about coming to Snap. “For us, the challenge has been, how do we make something distinct and complementary in value.”Ĭompared with rivals - TikTok, of course, as well as Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts - Snap is “trying to occupy a more casual space” with Snapchat Spotlight, according to Corrao Clanon, “to build an audience and a voice, and also an outlet to capture spontaneous moments.”Ĭorrao Clanon joined Snap earlier this year from TikTok, where he was head of content strategy and insights.
“Content and short-form video is a very competitive space right now,” he said. But the company’s investment in the platform shows it is committed to help creators of all kinds meaningfully grow their audiences and build a business, said Sam Corrao Clanon, director of content who leads the Snapchat Spotlight team.
Snap has yet to prove it can turn Spotlight into a meaningful business. According to Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, the company reduced overall Spotlight payments to discourage people from creating viral, one-off copycat videos.
If it had kept up that pace, Snap would have paid, well, $365 million or more to creators in 2021. When it first launched the TikTok-style video feature in November 2020, the company said it would shell out upwards of $1 million per day in total among Spotlight contributors with top-performing videos. And Snap actually dialed back its payouts for Spotlight.