Copying features that are popular with competitors is one way to try and increase time spent, which explains why we’ve seen so much of it recently. The result, though, has been a rather uninspiring race to the middle. Each app is losing its unique identity in favor of features you can find inside numerous competitors.
Snapchat is a platform where creators of all kinds can meaningfully grow their audience, build their business and entertain our community.
One year ago we launched ‘Spotlight’ to lower the barrier to content creation and shine a light on the most entertaining Snaps created by the Snapchat community, no matter who created them.
Spotlight is designed with our values at its core – profiles are private by default and all content is moderated before it can gain distribution. This is done to ensure that we reduce the risk of spreading misinformation, hate speech, or other potentially harmful content.
We have been awed by the positivity of our community. Their talents, passions and unique perspectives are showcased on Spotlight every day, and it’s been exciting to see Snapchatters’ imaginations run wild while using Creative Tools. Cartoon 3D Style Lens, which uses machine learning to turn people into a 3D-animated cartoon in real-time, generated 2.8 billion impressions on Snapchat alone in its first week of release and we watched on Spotlight as our community recreated their favorite childhood movies with them (or their pets!) as the star. In fact, over 65% of Spotlight submissions use one of Snapchat’s Creative Tools or an augmented reality Lens.
Over the past year, more than 12,000 creators have collectively been paid over $250 Million USD through the Spotlight programs! So we guess this new form of content is up and coming…
In the year ahead, Snapchat will continue to offer a range of opportunities to meet the needs of creators as they entertain our community while growing their brand. And for the community, Snapchat will continue to make it even easier to follow and view content from your favorite creators – whether that be on Spotlight, Stories or Discover. Today, over 25 Spotlight creators are also syndicating their show on Discover, with more to launch in the coming months.
Follow @itp.live to know if this feature is performing well.