This week, Snap released its new TikTok competitor called Spotlight on Snapchat. Snap is intending for Spotlight to be more focused on viral, meme content.
To encourage users to post to Spotlight regularly, Snap said it’ll pay out $1 million dollars to the most popular creators on the app per day until the end of 2020. So, if you upload a viral video on Spotlight, you could receive some money from Snapchat. Snap said that it won’t be looking at the number of subscribers a creator has. Instead, they’ll be looking at how many unique views a video has compared to other videos that day. Additionally, creators can receive money multiple days for one video if it’s popular enough.
Snap takes on TikTok with Spotlight
While it’s true that Spotlight will operate similarly to TikTok, Snap claims that it’s designed it for its user base. For instance, there is no public comment section. Additionally, profiles are set to private by default. This means that creators can have their accounts protected when posting videos. Regardless of these differences, it’s clear Spotlight is Snap’s answer to the success of short-form viral videos.
Spotlight videos can be up to 60 seconds long and watermarked videos can not be uploaded — at least at this time. That means videos can’t be taken from other platforms and uploaded. Users will be recommended content by Snapchat’s algorithm. It will suggest content it thinks that users might enjoy watching.
Currently, Spotlight is launching in 11 countries, including the US, UK, France, Germany, and Australia. So users in these countries can try out the new section and potentially earn money for their videos. They just have to go viral before the end of 2020.
Image courtesy: Snap Inc.